


Chance

by nyxicillin



Series: Reconcile (A Neoborg Series) [1]
Category: Bakuten Shoot Beyblade, Beyblade
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Violence, emotional/physical hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-15 21:55:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 114,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1320556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyxicillin/pseuds/nyxicillin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nine years had been long enough for Yuri to get used to the Abbey, to learn how to ignore the pain around him, to recognise when to keep his head down and stay quiet. Long enough to know that his loss at the Championships had thrown more than just his own life into limbo. But then an offer of help comes from the most unexpected source, and for once, Yuri decides to take a risk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Beyblade is copyright Takao Aoki. Check warnings please! Using original names.

It wasn't the sound of the crowd that roused Yuri from his thoughts, wasn't the elated cries of the spectators or Takao's teammates, it wasn't even the warmth of the boy’s palm against his own or his beaming grin. No, catching sight of Wolborg from the corner of his eye, lying prone at the bottom of the dish, scratched, cracked, _defeated_ , was all it took to send Yuri's world crashing down around him.

He realised he'd lost.

Almost instantly, as he was trained to do, Yuri replayed the last three rounds in his mind. Even as Takao Kinomiya, the winner, shook his hand and spoke to him— _at_ him—Yuri was already elsewhere. He reviewed the match set from the very start, analysing each and every second of his performance critically and without restraint to find out exactly what he'd done wrong, surely it must have been his mistake: a miscalculation, an error in timing, a split-second of hesitation in a vital moment. There was no other explanation for the result; Valkov wouldn't _accept_ any other explanation.

Somewhere between the second round finishing and the start of the third and final round—the deciding battle—Yuri's mind went completely and utterly blank. As if someone had been recording the match and had run out of tape. Nothing. No sight, no sound, even the faint scent of burning as Wolborg's metal tip scored lines into the dish during speed changes, a scent he'd become so accustomed to during training, was entirely non-existent. He racked his memory for something, _anything_ that explained what had happened to him in that space of time between resetting his launcher and shaking Takao's hand.

He found nothing but pitch black emptiness, as if his own mind had betrayed him.

Glancing up at the wallboard, Yuri wondered if it was possible he'd just misinterpreted the entire situation. Whether the crowd cheered with excitement, not congratulations. Whether Takao shook his hand in anticipation, not gratitude. Whether he was actually stood by the side of the dish preparing to enter the third match and destroy his opponent, as per his orders, not standing in the presence of the new champion. The numbers on the wallboard confirmed that out of desperation Yuri was only letting his imagination get the better of him. His image sneered down at him and laughed at the score sheet.

Yuri made his way back to the dugout where Sergei was stood. He wasn't entirely sure how he even made it down from the dish because it felt too much like he was sliding on broken legs over dangerously thin ice, constantly threatening to crack and swallow him into the freezing water with every single step.

Sergei spared him a brief, pitiful glance that Yuri wanted to shake off but it stayed with him, suffocating. From the darkness of the tunnel that now seemed miles away, Valkov's eyes glared at him— _through_ him—as if the man could barely bring himself to look upon the weak, useless, pathetic shred of a soldier he'd become.

Disgust rose as bile in his throat and he felt physically sick—he wasn't ill, hadn't been ill once during his time at the Abbey—but somehow he felt as though being able to vomit what little he had managed to eat before the finals would make him feel immensely better about his failure. As if clearing his stomach would clear his entire body of the anger and dread that mingled there.

Dread was something he had grown to understand, to live with and work around and _ignore_ as if it were nothing more than an irritating itch. But now, as hands grabbed him roughly by his shoulders and shoved him through a closed door, using his body to force it open, Yuri lost the mental strength to push the dread away.

"Despicable, worthless, _unacceptable_ …"

Yuri bowed his head, blocked out the sound of Valkov's furious tirade and focused on a smear of dirt across one of his boots. He'd heard it all before, not usually aimed at him, true, but the more often you heard it, the easier it became to phase out.

"I should have expected it of that reckless fool who battled second, but not of _you_ , Ivanov." Yuri dared to glance up, got as far as Valkov's knees and faltered. No doubt he was referring to Boris, and Yuri suddenly remembered—how could he forget?—that he hadn't seen where his unconscious teammate had been taken after his match.

"Do you have _anything_ to say to defend your pathetic performance, boy?"

"No, sir." The expected response, Yuri knew better than to dare speak anything else. Yes sir, no sir, whatever you say _sir_. He wanted to ask about Boris, but there was a time and a place, and neither were when you stood in the firing line of Valkov's anger.

"Very well." He saw Valkov raise a gloved hand and signal to the guard behind him—Levitsky was his name, Valkov’s second-in-command—and the same rough hands that had thrown him into the room dragged him back out. Yuri caught a glance of Valkov's profile just before the door slammed shut and, unsurprisingly, he looked completely enraged.

He was marched through corridors almost faster than he could keep up, stumbling over his own feet on more than one occasion, and he so desperately wanted to act on the anger bubbling under his skin, wanted to lash out at the hands that held him, at the smug face of the man that dared to push him around. But he wouldn't— _couldn't_ —because to do so would only risk making his punishment worse and jeopardise his chance of seeing Boris when he returned to the Abbey.

Yuri could still hear the chants of praise and joy when he finally made it up to the rooftop of the stadium, and he wished he could spend just a second standing by the edge, looking down on the crowd that had surely gathered there to congratulate Takao and his team, and share in just the tiniest glimpse of their happiness. He wondered whether they knew just what the result meant for Neoborg, wondered whether Kai had told them.

The mere thought stung his heart as it regurgitated the short-lived memory of Kai returning to the Abbey, before he’d betrayed them and returned to his friends. The people he’d betrayed in the first place. He barely knew Kai, before the championship Yuri had only seen him briefly the few times Valkov had elected to take him to see the Director, Kai's grandfather, with the aim of showing off his latest success.

Kai had seemed shy, meek even, at first glance anyway, but there was a fire and a sense of determination in the boy's eyes that Yuri recognised and respected almost instantly. Not once had he pinned Kai as a traitor, not until now. But if the rumours were true, that Kai had ended up with amnesia following the short time he had spent at the Abbey as a child under Valkov's regime, then perhaps that explained his actions. Yuri suspected that Kai must have suffered an overwhelming burst of old memories that left him confused, mistaking the Abbey for home once again and forgetting that he really didn't belong there.

Not with them, not anymore.

Sergei was already in the helicopter when Yuri approached it, strapped in and ready to go like the good little soldier he was. His face was as blank as ever, and he offered Yuri nothing in the way of greeting. Not even the slightest glance.

"Seriy…" The name slipped from Yuri's mouth before he could help himself, suddenly desperate for _something_ in the way of comfort from the older boy. But he shouldn't have said a word and realised his stupid mistake far too late.

He gasped, biting down firmly on his lip to stop himself from making any other noise as sharp pain reverberated from his shoulder all the way to his toes. The metal baton in Levitsky's merciless hands slammed down again over the same spot, bone crunched beneath his skin and Yuri's knees buckled. He crashed to the floor, one hand clasped over his throbbing shoulder, the other still twisted in the material of the chair beside him, fingers clenched so tightly that he felt his nails tear against the fabric. Yuri squeezed his eyes shut against stinging tears, allowing himself only a shuddering breath once he'd heard the man's footsteps disappear and the door shut with a bang.

The sound of the helicopter's blades starting up sounded muted in his ears, lost amid the erratic pounding of his heartbeat as he struggled to catch his breath. Wordlessly, Sergei unclipped his belt and shifted to the aisle seat, reaching out with calloused hands to brush Yuri's tangled hair back from his forehead.

"Get up," Sergei demanded, gentler than Yuri expected but still leaving little room for argument. " _Move_ , Yura."

He did as he was asked, wincing as the sudden rock of the helicopter jostled his left arm and the pain sparked up again. His entire arm was gradually becoming numb, for which he was thankful, though he could already imagine the bruising that would surely form over his skin.

"Where's Borya?" he asked, knowing that Sergei would pick up on the words he couldn't bring himself to speak.

Sergei led him a few rows back, it wouldn't do for him to be seen sitting anywhere near a failure such as Yuri after all, and carefully lowered him into a chair, pulling his belt over and locking it into place. "Haven't seen him since."

Yuri nodded, he didn't need to hear anything else. Boris would already be back at the Abbey, already suffering for his irresponsible loss. Questions burned in Yuri's mind, overpowering the pain just for a moment. "Did you see what happened? His match, he—"

"I know," Sergei said. He offered nothing else, merely returned to his seat and didn't look back.

He'd only said two words, but it was all Yuri needed to confirm that Sergei had seen the exact same thing as he had and relight the simmering dread in his gut; Boris had disobeyed a direct order and deliberately thrown the final round against Rei Kon.


	2. Chapter 2

Six days.

Six days since the championship finals, since his loss had brought all of Biovolt’s plans to a halt.

Six days since he'd spent the longest and coldest nights of his life locked in a dark isolation cell as punishment, staring out at the stars through a small barred window.

Six whole days since he'd seen Boris' limp, bleeding and half-conscious form carried away from him on his forced march down to the cells.

Boris had lifted his head a minute fraction, just enough to stare up at Yuri through the eye that wasn't swollen shut. Blood flecked his face and stained his silvery-grey hair a dull red. Yuri hadn't been able to work out whatever his friend was trying to convey through that single glance, only able to focus on the fact that Boris’ punishment had been a lot more severe than he’d ever expected, until a sharp pain seared across his shoulders and he was ordered to look away. If anything, he'd sincerely doubted that Boris would be up and moving any time soon.

If he ever would be able to move again. _Nobody_ disobeyed a direct order, especially not when there was so much at risk.

Valkov spent hours upon hours shouting vile curses in his ear, insulting and humiliating him as if Yuri alone were the cause of every single misery in the world. Shoving him to the ground only to yank him back up, crushing him with the wicked metal baton, blow upon blow that left Yuri's body feeling stiff and numb until he collapsed to his knees. Every attack was an attempt to draw a cry or a shout of pain from him, something Yuri was fully aware of, but he was determined not to allow Valkov the pleasure.

Yuri was surprised, shocked even, when the violence suddenly stopped just as quickly as it had come and he was escorted swiftly and silently back to his room by Levitsky, his door slamming behind him. He sat awake for the entire night, knees pulled against his chest under sheets that did nothing to protect him from the cold, nursing his wounds with a damp towel.

It didn't make sense; Boris had lost his match as well, and his punishment had brought him to the very brink of exhaustion and flung him over the edge. In comparison, Yuri had been scolded like a child and let off with barely a mark. Even when he considered that Boris’ loss had been deliberate, something that he knew, in Valkov’s eyes at least, deserved a fate close to death, it had been down to Yuri and Yuri alone to bring Biovolt the win. Boris hadn’t lost Valkov the championship, _Yuri_ had.

The memory, or lack thereof, of the third round in the finals plagued him almost constantly, both in every waking moment and in his nightmares. Perhaps Valkov had seen that his loss hadn't been deliberate, saving him from the same fate Boris had suffered? Perhaps there had been something, perhaps Valkov had seen something in his final match, something Yuri couldn’t remember, that had convinced the man to relax his punishment?

Yuri refused to believe that his previous position as Valkov's favourite had any influence on the reduced punishment; the very second Valkov realised that his ridiculous ambitions were lost thanks to him, Yuri was sure that his standing had faded to nothing.

But life continued as if nothing had happened, just as it always had, and Yuri was almost certain that Biovolt hadn’t risked everything on the championship, that they must have had a contingency plan, just in case. There was no other explanation for why he and the other boys were still being kept under lock and key, after all.

Training was just as regular, just as intense, and Yuri was still booked for sessions that lasted well over five hours stood in front of automated beyblade launchers, firing Wolborg again and again, over and over, forcing himself to ignore the way his shoulder and his battered ribs protested against the constant movement and begged for rest.

His newly redesigned blade blasted through his mechanical opponents, shrapnel flew from the dish, scratching at his face and hands and tearing into his training uniform, but he kept going. To give up would only incite Valkov's wrath once again, and Yuri couldn't afford to be locked away when Boris was finally released. He was allowed for meals only at set times and only _for_ a set time, his schedule ran from dawn to dusk, every second accounted for with scarcely a spare moment to breathe. When he was unable to train with his blade, he was forced on a punishing circuit around the gymnasium, when he wasn't booked for circuits, he underwent medical after medical in the labs. But he _kept going_. It was as difficult as any of the vigorous training regimes Valkov had submitted him to in the past.

He'd managed it before, knew he could manage it again. Levitsky stood still and silent, dark eyes watching over him like a hawk.

Over a week since he'd last seen his friend, Yuri had started to wonder whether he would ever be seeing Boris' face again. Any other boy in the Abbey would be kicked out the very second they failed to hit a target or meet Biovolt's demanding standards. Boris' failure, the way he'd taken the result of the match into his own hands, made his own decision and acted as _he_ wanted, was worse than merely failing to reach a set target. _Much_ worse. Yuri barely managed to sleep at night, steadily becoming more and more worried that Boris would end up as another forgotten face in the endless sea of new recruits and disappearing outcasts, nothing more.

Until one dark, cold morning, when Yuri was so overwhelmed with fear for Boris' life that he was suffocating under it, unable to even think about touching his breakfast, Boris finally appeared beside Sergei in the food hall. Yuri was so elated to see him that he nearly forgot himself and jumped up from his seat with joy.

Sergei sat down first, taking the seat next to Boris' usual spot, and set down his own tray as well as Boris'. The older boy looked tired, which Yuri found odd as Sergei was never anything but at his best. It didn’t make sense, until in the fluorescent lights that hung above them, Yuri took a long, painful look at Boris himself and had to tear his eyes away. He looked no livelier than a _corpse_.

Yuri was hit by a sudden realisation that made his heart drop to his stomach, his previous happiness shattered, and he prayed to whoever would listen that he was wrong. After nine long, torturous years, it looked as if Boris had finally been broken.

Every inch of sallow skin was decorated with poorly healing cuts, dirty scratches and blotchy, yellowing bruises. Boris held his right arm close to his side; hand zipped into his jacket pocket in the closest he could get to a make-shift sling. His left hand rested on the table, and it was clear to Yuri that Boris had put up a struggle, knuckles red-raw and cracked. Boris swallowed thickly, seeming to find it hard to force his throat into action, and even with his jacket zipped up to his chin, Yuri could spot the edges of bruising there as well.

He made the mistake of catching Boris' eyes in a fleeting glance, his own breath hitching when he failed to spot the fire—the _anger_ —he was so used to seeing, staring only into dull green that he refused to believe belonged to his friend. It was all so _wrong_. Boris was a fighter, had been since the moment he stepped into the Abbey. Stubborn, headstrong and arrogant, he questioned authority at every turn, spoke his mind even when he should have been silent, and refused to back down even when the odds were undeniably stacked against him.

Perhaps that was the problem; if only he had surrendered, just this once, perhaps he wouldn't have suffered so badly.

"Hello, Borya," Yuri tried quietly, hoping the sound of a familiar voice would make Boris lift his head. It didn't work.

"I wouldn't bother, he hasn't said a word since they brought him back." Sergei's voice was flat, indifferent, and Yuri wanted to read more into it but found nothing. Sergei had taught himself a long time ago to be unaffected by even the most severe punishments in the Abbey—keep your head down and ignore it and you kept yourself out of trouble—something Yuri had never quite mastered, Boris even less so.

"When?"

"Two nights ago," Sergei said, picking around in his bowl with his spoon and only eating small mouthfuls. Boris hadn't even moved his hands to his tray yet. "Danil came to get me in the middle of the night—thought he was dead."

Danil was two years younger than Boris, a short, wiry boy who was afraid of his own shadow, and had been moved into room 212 just a few months ago. After only days together, Boris had become immensely irritated and was itching for the chance to get rid of him just as Danil was praying to swap rooms with _anyone_ else. Yuri was thankful Danil at least had the common sense to stay awake long enough to check Boris was still breathing.

"Has he been for a medical?" Yuri asked, unable to take his eyes off his friend and finding it strange to be talking about him as if he wasn't even there.

"They gave him a code four and patched up the worst of it."

Code four meant no badly broken bone, but certainly not fit for full training. Not that Valkov cared, training only stopped when the diagnosis was two or lower; severe breaks and fractures that required a cast or a potential fatality. At code zero it didn't matter either way. A shiver rattled through Yuri's spine and he had to push his breakfast away as nausea struck.

He wanted to ask what Boris had been thinking when he'd stepped up to the dish and made one of the most reckless decisions of his life. Surely the boy knew what the end result would be? He may have been beaten, but he was lucky to still be in the Abbey and not trapped outside in the snow. He wanted to ask why Boris hadn't even thought to _mention_ the idea before, if only so Yuri could have tried to talk him out of it.

Anger surged through him, unwanted and unnecessary, and Yuri struggled to force it away. He didn't get the chance to say another word though, as Boris suddenly got to his feet with a barely disguised grimace and limped his way across the hall to the door leading to toilet cubicles. His food was untouched, leading Yuri to wonder how much he'd been allowed to eat since his return.

Sergei sighed, closed his eyes, and ran a shaky hand through his hair before blankness fell over his face yet again. It was rare enough for Sergei to show such an obvious sign of concern in the first place, rarer still to show it so openly, and it only set the niggling worry in Yuri's gut alight.

The intercom crackled and spat white noise and Yuri recognised his room number before it barked that he was to return to the training centre immediately. The fact that they still called his name didn’t make sense as he no longer shared his room with anyone. He sighed, casting one final, longing glance at the door Boris still hadn't returned from. His uniform-clad shadow stepped away from the wall and disappeared into the corridor.

"I'll look out for him, Yura."

Sergei's voice, in a gentle tone Yuri hadn't heard for so long now, caught him off-guard and he stumbled in pulling his leg over the bench seat. Sergei held his gaze for a tense moment and Yuri only looked away once he was certain he saw nothing but pure, honest concern in Sergei's eyes. He nodded once, conveying only a simple acceptance of Sergei's promise, and left without another word.

He knew Sergei would keep to his word, but as strong as the older boy was, and as capable as he was of picking them up when they fell, Yuri was only too aware that Sergei couldn't protect them from everything.


	3. Chapter 3

Yuri first noticed something odd was going on when he woke up to find himself alone for once. Levitsky wasn’t waiting for him in the corridor before dawn, probably sent back to ordering the rest of the guards around, and Yuri finally felt as though he could breathe again. But nothing had happened, he hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary so couldn’t understand why the man had disappeared—unless it was _because_ he hadn’t done anything?

Unless Valkov had been expecting him to try something stupid and reckless, and had assigned him with a watchman to prevent him from doing so?

Hushed whispers and murmured voices filtered through the air behind him as he sat picking at his lunch, stopping too suddenly when he turned around for it to be coincidence. From the corner of his eye he witnessed something small and pale, hidden under trays and exchanged through an unnecessary handshake between two boys who had shared a room on the third floor for years.

Yuri frowned, watching over his shoulder, irritated that there was something happening, something clearly secretive, that he’d been left in the dark about. The object, whatever it was, disappeared far too quick for him to get a good look at, so when he walked past them, he deliberately tripped, sending his bowl and the barely-touched gruel inside it splattering over the tabletop and into the closest boy’s lap.

He’d expected the fist that sailed for his cheek and swerved, the boy’s knuckles lightly grazing his skin. The resulting chaos that followed—because it could never be said that the guards watching over the hall were reluctant to fight—caused enough of a distraction for Yuri to duck under the table and search the boys for anything they may have hidden in their pockets.

Luck was on his side; sticking out of a waistband was the corner of what looked to be a piece of white paper. Yuri darted out, his fingers clawing at the hem of the boy’s jacket, but a thick-muscled arm caught around his neck and jerked him back. Yuri collapsed to the ground gagging for air, and watched as his prize, and the boy holding it, were dragged away from the scene.

As the hall fell silent, Yuri started to wonder whether he was merely going mad from exhaustion.

It wasn't until Vasily, one of the older ‘orphans’ and the only boy Sergei had ever had to share a room with, very deliberately pushed a towel to his chest in the communal shower the following morning and told him to ‘keep quiet and act normal’, that Yuri clocked that perhaps _he_ was actually at the heart of all the secrecy spreading around the Abbey.

Forcing himself to carry on walking back to the bench he'd dumped his fresh uniform on, drab and grey and a size too big as usual, without showing any sign of confusion or nervousness was a lot more difficult than he’d anticipated; guards stood at every corner, though none of them seemed to take any notice of what happening right in front of them.

Since he’d first set foot in the Abbey, boys had been escorted to the showers in groups. They followed a rota, apparently, yet another way for Valkov to keep track of where they were, what they were doing and when. As far as Yuri knew, Vasily shouldn’t have been with them at all.

Yuri carefully felt through the towel before he unfolded it and his fingers brushed the edge of a folded sheet of paper—an envelope, to be exact. He caught Vasily's eye across the room, silently asking what he was supposed to do. Was Vasily expecting him to pass it on? The dark-haired boy mimicked slipping his hand into the inside of an imaginary coat, covering the action by scratching at his bicep, and without a second-thought, Yuri quickly shook out his training jacket and managed to slide the envelope though a tear in the lining without catching any unwanted attention.

The mystery letter burned against his side for the remainder of the day, distracting him from his training to the point that his technician called it off after only three hours. A stray beyblade from the automatic launcher had caught Yuri just above the knee, leaving a gaping hole in his trousers and a scratch that drew blood, but he only noticed after it was pointed out to him, nodding but not really listening when he was ordered to visit the storeroom and replace his uniform again.

His mind spun endlessly around thoughts on who could have even wanted to write to him—if it was addressed to him at all—certain that it was someone from outside the Abbey’s gates as messages inside were always passed on as muted whispers and never in writing. But for someone to sneak _anything_ past the Abbey's impenetrable security was unheard of, almost impossible.

He was thankful that Valkov seemed to have disappeared, apparently having been called to a conference with the Director in Saint Petersburg, and after pretending to collapse from exhaustion—if he'd learnt only one thing from the Abbey it was how to put on an act—he was able to get away from the gymnasium an hour earlier than usual.

When he was back in his room, the need to replace his uniform forgotten, Yuri folded himself tightly in his sheets and huddled underneath the window with his back to the wall, moonlight reflecting off the tattered envelope gripped too tightly in his hands.

He spared another glance at the closed door opposite, where the light from the hallway and a sense of fear crept through the crack underneath. The bedroom doors didn't lock, but Yuri reminded himself once again that it was highly unlikely he would be disturbed so late into the night.

With a heavy sigh, he turned his attention back to the envelope. His name was curled onto the front, first name only with no patronymic or family name, showing that it wasn't anything official. It was written in Cyrillic, which to Yuri at least indicated the sender was Russian. His first, somewhat alarming thought was that it was from his father, but the idea was ridiculous and Yuri found himself chuckling and shaking his head. The man shouldn’t have even known where he was, after all.

He carefully picked apart the seal with blunt nails and pulled out three small note pages, one completely blank, and the shortest stick of pencil he had ever laid eyes on. Unable to help himself, Yuri flicked straight to the end to check the name of his mysterious messenger, and was stunned by what he saw.

Kai. _Kai Hiwatari_.

He skimmed the letter once, twice, then realised he'd still not taken in a word of it before sitting more upright against the wall and reading it properly for a third time. Kai wanted to help them get out, wanted to rid the Abbey of Valkov and Biovolt's twisted influence for good. Yuri couldn't help but gasp, torn between horror at Kai's suggestion, anger that the boy thought they couldn't manage without his help, and an unfamiliar feeling of gratitude that Kai cared enough to even try.

The letter briefly explained his defection back to his old team and the reason hit Yuri hard. Of course Kai could do nothing to help them if he was trapped within the Abbey's walls himself. Every doubt he'd had about the boy, Director's grandson or not, suddenly seemed meaningless, and Yuri was left with only the respect he had felt for Kai from the moment he'd first met him.

All Kai asked of him in return was for his trust, and his word that he wouldn't utter a single thing to anyone else in the Abbey, not even his own team. Kai was risking a lot to try and get them out which Yuri understood; Biovolt Corporation was owned by his grandfather's company and Kai stood to inherit it someday. If his grandfather got word from Valkov or vice versa that both he and Yuri had been communicating, the outcome wouldn't be pleasant for either of them.

Yuri shivered suddenly, certain it wasn’t only from the cold.

Kai had included the blank paper and the pencil for him to write back, knowing from the limited time he had spent back on the Neoborg team that items such as paper and pens were luxuries the Abbey didn't offer.

Within half a moment, Yuri had folded Kai's letter back into his coat and splayed the paper out on his knee, pencil stub held tightly between the tips of his fingers. He had no clue what to write back; he and Kai barely knew each other, which made it feel odd from the outset, but the sheer magnitude of what Kai was planning set Yuri's nerves on fire and he could barely think straight.

He decided to sleep on it, the cold from the wall had started to seep through the sheets and numb his back. He collapsed onto his bunk, hastily yanking his pillow free from it's case, thankful to Boris for showing him how to unpick the stitching along the seams with his nails to create a hiding place. Boris kept a crumpled photo hidden in the stuffing of his own pillow which Yuri had found once, entirely by accident. He’d never mentioned his discovery to his friend as he wasn't sure whether Yuri's questions around the people he suspected to be Boris' parents would be welcomed or not.

Boris rarely ever mentioned his life before the Abbey, to the point that outsiders might believe he was born behind its walls, and even in the few months Yuri had spent with him before they were brought to this awful place, scouring the markets of Saint Petersburg in the hopes of finding an opportunity to steal, Boris had only gone as far as to let Yuri in on his father's name and nothing more.

Either way, the secrecy combined with his living on the streets didn't paint the happiest picture of Boris' early childhood. It was the same story for nearly every other boy they lived with; Yuri himself was no different.

He contemplated Kai's letter the next night as well, once again too tired to move yet too alert to sleep. He listened to the plain note paper crinkle in his pillow whenever he turned his head, absently reaching up to find the hidden pencil stub through the fabric and stuffing. Still unsure of what he wanted to say, how much he was willing to give.

His indecision was resolved only a day later, though not at all as he’d expected.

* * *

Ivan was smashing through round after round against the battle simulators in the training centre, and Yuri, finding himself with nothing better to do in his rare afternoon of so-called leisure time, had decided at lunch to play on his role as Captain and had been watching Ivan train for over half an hour.

Not that Yuri was in any real position of leadership, that he’d worked out quickly enough. The only reason Valkov selected a captain for the first team—or the reserve, for that matter—was because he had to fill someone’s name in the gap on the tournament registration sheet. In the outside world, captaining a team in any sport meant acting as a role model, making the tough choices, creating the strategies that lead to success and the back-up plans in case they fell through. At the Abbey, captaincy was merely a title, nothing more. Decisions came as direct orders from Valkov alone and they had no option but to obey.

The technician flicked switches and entered commands into the system, a metallic clank echoing from somewhere beneath the beydish. Yuri watched Ivan set his launcher and nod from the other side of the protective glass, signalling he was ready, and the battle against his mechanical opponent started up again. Ivan was certainly testing his limits; sweat shone on his forehead, plastering his tangled hair to his skin and tracing a damp line from the collar of his shirt, and Yuri started to feel the smallest inkling of respect for him.

Glancing over the readings on a nearby screen, showing fluctuating power increases and overall output, Yuri considered the boy in front of him with an analytical eye, watching his body tense and his eyes follow each and every move of his blade. Ivan's strengths clearly lay in speed and evasion with little thought spared for attack, defence or lasting endurance. Not that it mattered too much; in order to do any significant damage, his opponent would have to be able to hit him first, and even a beyblade primed for maximum accuracy would struggle to make that hit if it wasn't also quick enough to catch him.

Yuri watched as Wyborg swerved to and fro across the dish, winding great coils around the enemy blade until he'd gathered enough momentum to strike with almost blinding speed. Not all that different to a serpent going for the kill. Shattered metal splayed in a cone on the base of the bowl and Wyborg skipped over the rim to spin at Ivan's feet.

"Wanna go a quick round, captain?" Ivan turned to him suddenly with an almost lecherous expression, mischief burning in his eyes. He flipped his launcher over his shoulder and commanded Wyborg back to his hand, a blatant challenge, not something Yuri was known to back down from.

"It would give me a chance to fully analyse the new build structure we've implemented in a realistic situation,” the technician said in response to Yuri's questioning glance for permission. "Simulators can give me statistics and estimates, nothing more."

So Yuri wasn't the only one who'd had a recent upgrade. Wolborg felt heavy in his pocket, almost as if she were shivering with anticipation. He unclipped his launcher from his belt and locked his blade into place on auto-pilot. One round couldn't hurt.


	4. Chapter 4

Ivan was almost shaking with excitement as together they uncoupled the latches on the ground that held the temporary dish he'd been working with in place—shallower than usual, though before Yuri had even asked, Ivan explained that he’d been testing how well his blade travelled over a flat—and it slid away to reveal a standard-depth bowl. Ivan crouched low and lined up his launcher, signalling to the technician when Yuri set his ripcord and nodded his consent. Timed by a tinny, prerecorded countdown, they fired on cue and Ivan wasted no time in commanding Wyborg into action.

Yuri waited, kept Wolborg spinning a tight circle in the dead centre of the bowl, conserving power whilst he watched Wyborg twist and turn around him. Ivan would make a mistake soon enough, tempted by Wolborg's apparently open defence, and Yuri was happy to wait until that moment to make his move.

Wyborg sped past him, winding great looping circles around the blade in the centre and pulling in just close enough to kiss metal against metal before shooting off again. He was teasing Yuri with his recklessness in an obvious attempt to rile him into action and didn't have the audacity to pretend otherwise. Yuri wouldn't budge, surely Ivan knew that, but watching Wyborg spiral around him, Yuri realised how little he knew about the other boy, and not only in terms of his beyblading skills.

Then Ivan made his first mistake, turning too wide and leaving himself vulnerable, running high along the wall of the dish; the mistake Yuri had been watching for, _longing_ for. Within only a brief mental command, nothing more, Wolborg had surged from her place, her speed and power doubling with the energy she'd conserved. She tore a single reverse lap around the bowl, aiming for a full-on strike. The angle of his blade dipped, Yuri already having calculated by eye the distance from the tip of Ivan's blade to the bottom of the weight-disk and the perfect point to strike.

Ivan smirked and casually flicked his fingers outward, an action Yuri didn't fully understand until Wyborg actually _disappeared_ before his eyes. A split-second later, he reappeared behind Wolborg and slammed into her hard; a narrow, last-minute swerve the only thing saving her from a disastrous crash into the unforgiving rim of the dish.

Wolborg's confusion flared and Yuri blinked, stunned that he'd just walked straight into Ivan's trap without even realising. Apparently the match wasn't going to be as one sided as he originally thought, which served him right for allowing arrogance to get the better of him.

The first thought that flickered in Yuri’s mind was that Ivan must have cheated somehow, until he remembered seeing Ivan pull the exact same move twice before—first against the American team, and again against Takao Kinomiya—and actually felt ashamed for doubting him.

He dared a glance at the boy opposite, struggling to keep the annoyance from his expression. Ivan was toying with him, that much was clear, and he watched Ivan's dark eyes dart back and forth across the bowl, no doubt following Wyborg's impossibly fast movement, too fast for Yuri to see. He wouldn't make the same error twice, no matter how much Ivan wished him to.

Searching his memories for something he could compare to Ivan’s technique, something he could quickly analyse and create an effective strategy to overcome, Yuri hastily recalled his recent opponents. Boris charged into his matches with bullish brute force—attack first, think later—and Takao had been just as head-strong if not quite as merciless. Sergei had perfected his defensive skill to the point that his opponents were defeated by their own exhaustion; he rarely had to call on Seaborg’s full power to secure a win any more. And Kai… Kai was just as intuitive and resourceful as Yuri was trained to be; what he lacked in defence he made up for with a lasting endurance and quick-thinking, an ability to spot flaws and weaknesses and tear them apart with Dranzer’s wicked attack.

Frowning down at the dish, Yuri wasn’t quite sure whether he felt excited or concerned about the fact that he hadn’t faced anyone quite like Ivan before.

Almost ten minutes in, when Yuri had made absolutely no headway and Ivan had remained almost completely invisible, Yuri stopped holding back. He was well aware that for a blade such as Ivan's, ten minutes hard work was equivalent to barely ten seconds for an endurance type of Wolborg's design, upgraded or not. Wyborg must have been tiring quickly, the great amount of energy required to sustain his high level of speed for so long only exacerbating the fact.

With little effort, Yuri raised the bar to the next level, calling Wolborg from her shell and wanting to laugh at the grim expression that descended on Ivan's face, because surely he knew it was over. But as he took in the great wolf looming above him, the boy's eyes widened—with awe, Yuri noticed, not the fear he had hoped for—and the mocking smirk returned to his lips.

"Did you think this was gonna be easy?" Ivan asked, patronising. "You look _tired_ , captain."

Yuri growled and wanted to swipe the smirk from the boy's face with his fist.

Ivan's eyes flashed red, actually _glowed_ as a great gulp of air gathered in the dish and Wyborg materialised from nowhere, his long, serpentine tail curling around Ivan like a shield. He looked far too powerful for a bit-beast that should have been exhausted well beyond its limit. It was statistically impossible, and Yuri made a mental note to review Ivan's recent training as soon as he had the chance. He'd barely spared him a second glance when he was added to the team roster, just another volatile, loud-mouthed brat with a trigger-happy personality. Hardly worth wasting a breath on. Now he wasn't so sure—he needed to know who Ivan Papov was.

The room glowed with an eerie blue-yellow aura and Yuri threw himself back into the match with renewed vigour. He didn't worry over the possibility of losing to Ivan, knew with certainty that it wouldn't happen, but he was almost to boiling point with being _taunted_ by the younger boy.

Ivan had changed tactics, no longer hiding himself and instead repeatedly matching Yuri's attacks blow for blow, over and over, with little concern for the damage he was surely doing to his own blade. Yuri glanced down at the dish, ignoring the commotion above him as his own bit-beast waged war with Ivan's, only to see that he'd barely made a scratch on Wyborg's surface. He frowned, confused, watching Ivan's movement critically until he found the answer.

Somehow, Ivan had managed to switch his rotation to spin the opposite direction to Yuri's blade. His speed had dropped massively, matching Wolborg's almost to perfection so that with each head-on collision, their blades merely skimmed off each other. A clever move, Yuri would give him that. Ivan obviously held the technical advantage, but with almost no defensive power he was still easy prey.

Yuri didn't need to see any more, calling on Wolborg to unleash her element and finish the match off quickly. Wolborg howled a powerful echo that was music to Yuri's ears as he felt her power surge through him. The temperature in the room dropped drastically and Yuri watched the ice build around the base of his blade, lowering his ground friction to near zero and increasing his speed tenfold. The computers bleeped endlessly in the next room and without even looking, Yuri knew that his statistics had just flown off the scales.

The boy he battled at least had the decency to look a little concerned. Wyborg ducked and dived, twisting and coiling around the dish as Wolborg began her sudden pursuit. The ice had formed a sharp spike on the very tip of his blade, and Yuri allowed himself a hint of a smile as it scored deep scars into the bowl.

Ivan's second mistake proved to be fatal. Wyborg swerved too sharply, a reckless attempt to backtrack on his own trail and launch another surprise counter from behind. His blade skipped over one of the icy grooves and wobbled on the landing just the tiniest fraction. Yuri had spotted it instantly and, from the look on the boy's face, so had Ivan.

Wolborg stormed forward with a sudden burst of speed, tilted at the perfect angle, and hit her target with such intensity that the impact sent Wyborg hurtling from the dish and soaring through the air, becoming embedded into the protective glass between them and the technician. The glass cracked, one single line running from Ivan's blade straight down to the ground, and Yuri smirked at the result.

" _Wow_." Ivan’s eyes flicked from Wolborg still spinning in the dish and his blade in the glass and back again. "Guess that's why Valkov made you captain."

"I guess so," Yuri said, catching Wolborg in his palm and closing his fingers around the frozen metal.

Ivan dashed around the divide, momentarily ignoring his blade, and stunned Yuri as he excitedly requested printouts of _everything_ that had occurred. Yuri wasn't sure how to react; so used to watching his opponents collapse to the floor in fear or shame, often both, when they lost to him that the sheer excitement that lit up the younger boy's face threw him completely.

Slipping Wolborg into his pocket, her familiar weight settling again in the back of his mind, Yuri stepped up to the glass and glanced over Ivan's blade whilst the boy was preoccupied. The metal was scuffed, and a crack had formed in the base from the point of impact, but aside from that it was relatively unscathed. Something else new; very few blades could withstand Wolborg's full assault and remain intact. Yuri reached up, intent on working Wyborg out from the glass in a rare show of generosity—because Ivan had earned _that_ much— when light flared from the bit-chip. A sudden pain licked tips of Yuri’s fingers and he jerked back in shock.

He flexed his hand to survey the damage, and sure enough, Ivan's blade had actually inflicted a physical burn, only adding another layer to the boy's mystery. When Yuri glanced up again, Ivan was staring at him through the glass with a knowing grin.

"He reckons you cheated," Ivan said, shrugging his shoulders.

Yuri sneered at the accusation. "Hardly.” How _dare_ Ivan even think such a thing, Yuri had won through sheer skill alone. His mind clicked back a few seconds and confusion descended on his face. "Wait—'he'?"

"Wyborg," Ivan said, nodding up at his blade as if the single word explained the meaning of life. What was the boy talking about?

He moved away as Ivan stood up on his toes to pluck Wyborg from his temporary prison, not even phased by the glowing light. Ivan didn't offer anything else on the subject, which left Yuri both perplexed and irritated.

"Wanna come see something cool?" Ivan zipped his blade into a pouch on his belt, flicking the safety latch on his launcher before heaving the strap over his shoulder. The thing was nearly as tall as he was.

Yuri didn't particularly want to see whatever Ivan was talking about. What he _needed_ to do was watch the boy's matches and try to work out where his ability stemmed from because he'd clearly made all the wrong assumptions. But it could wait, and he really had nothing else to do. "Sure."

Ivan led him out through the training centre, chatting endlessly about the latest technology the engineering teams were developing and how it could be incorporated into beyblades to do this and that; to be honest, Yuri had stopped listening the moment he’d realised he barely recognised the corridors they walked through. He committed every step he took to memory, mapping out their route in his mind. The air felt colder, smelt damper, and Yuri couldn't help but feel he had just stepped into a more dangerous side of the Abbey as everything just seemed _worse_ than he was used to.

"Where are we?" Yuri asked, feigning only mild interest just in case Ivan noticed that he was genuinely curious.

The boy shot him a confused glance. "West wing, guess you probably don't have a reason to come down here much."

Yuri didn't reply and Ivan didn't seem bothered. He was right, Yuri could probably count on one hand the number of times he had been through the western side of Abbey; the training centre, the food hall and the medical wards were on the East, as was his room. The West lead through to the science department and what he guessed were additional bedrooms, but aside from that he wasn't sure what else it held and had never been eager to find out.

A few curious faces peered around doors as he followed the boy though the corridors, no doubt drawn to Ivan’s loud voice still talking at a ridiculous speed about something Yuri had stopped hearing. Some were around his own his own age, others appeared even younger than Ivan, but all of them shared confused glances that became sneers. Yuri heard the whispers behind his back but let them slide right off him; they had almost become a permanent fixture since his loss in the finals.

Ivan stopped abruptly by a set of double doors and Yuri nearly walked right into him. "Here we are!" he announced, flinging his arms towards the entrance. “After you, captain."

Yuri quirked an eyebrow and hesitated for a second, still none the wiser of what lay in the next room. Perhaps he should have listened to Ivan's inane chatter after all.

"Well go on then, I've got work to do thanks to you." Ivan eventually let himself into the room first and didn't bother to hold the door for him.

Gazing around the door, Yuri felt immensely stupid for being even in the slightest bit concerned. Ivan had led him to an engineering suite, filled with the whirring of machines and the continual beeps and stutters of computer stations. The boy was already halfway across the room, pulling his headband and goggles on and tucking his unruly hair out of the way. Yuri hadn't even seen him pick them up. Nobody in the room spared him a second glance as he walked through and he didn't recognise any of the workers, though a few did exchange nods with Ivan, giving Yuri the impression that he was a regular visitor.

He caught up with Ivan at the top of a winding downward staircase that led even deeper into the Abbey, and the boy lost him again with technical jargon and engineering terms that Yuri didn't understand. It was obvious though that Ivan was passionate about the subject however, and Yuri filed the slither of information away in his mind for future reference.

"Wanna know a secret?" Ivan asked suddenly, stopping a few steps above Yuri so that they were almost at eye level.

"Depends what it is." Yuri turned and shot Ivan a quizzical glance. He was right to be cautious; secrets could be easily exploited in the wrong hands.

Ivan leaned towards him, close enough that Yuri could feel the boy's warm breath on his cheek, and whispered, "I helped design your new blade."

Yuri blanched, jerking backwards and planting one foot on the next step down. "That’s a _lie_." it had to be, Valkov only employed the best technicians and engineers for beyblade design. There was no way they would allow the little runt of a boy standing in front of him anywhere _near_ their precious work.

Ivan merely shook his head, smirked his irritating, maniac smirk, and sauntered on down the stairs. Impossible as it seemed, it _did_ explain how quickly and easily Ivan was able to match him in their earlier battle; he already had an intimate knowledge of Wolborg's design.

Yuri stayed with Ivan for nearly two hours, listening—actually listening—to him talk about the latest ideas he wanted to put forward to the design teams, the benefits and the risks, the potential obstacles they might face and how they might overcome them. He was stunned to silence when Ivan whipped out a roughly cut circle of metal and ploughed into it with a filing machine. Ivan built his own beyblades near enough from scratch, and had even been allowed to make minor alterations of his own desire to the plans Valkov had approved for him. Yuri also found out the hard way that the goggles Ivan wore were to protect his eyes when he was working; Yuri guessed he would be spending the rest of the day pulling tiny pieces of shrapnel from his hair.

He was shocked, however, when Ivan explained that he one day hoped to work for Valkov as a designer, when the man no longer considered him strong enough to make the main team.

"Why?" Yuri asked immediately, unable to help himself. He couldn't understand why someone would willingly want to stay in the Abbey.

Ivan merely shrugged, not losing focus on the attack-ring he was working on to replace the minor damage Yuri had caused. "Because I enjoy it? Engineering's just my thing, I guess. Besides, what else am I gonna do?"

Yuri blinked at the boy's apparently small ambitions. "What about when you get out of here? Surely you wouldn't want to come back—you could probably go to the BBA if you wanted to." Yuri had long since stopped being passionate about anything, passion became meaningless when you were confined between four stone walls. If Ivan stayed in the Abbey, his obvious skill and enthusiasm would only go to waste and there was so much more he could aim for.

Ivan turned around then, flicking the safety on the machine and pushing his goggles back onto his forehead. "Could you imagine them taking me in?" he asked, staring at Yuri for a long, awkward moment, his face utterly blank. And then he snorted and laughed as if Yuri had just told him the funniest joke in the world. “You're a real comedian, I'll give you that."

Yuri mentally picked his jaw up off the ground and wondered whether the boy was just stupid or actually insane.

The intercom system spluttered to life over the noise of Ivan's machine, and he hit the safety again to glare at the offending speaker. The voice seemed distorted so deep down in the Abbey, Ivan explained it was due to the damp. Yuri's name echoed around the room and a muffled groan escaped his lips, he'd foolishly believed he was out of training for the rest of the day.

He nodded a farewell to Ivan who in turn gave him a mock-salute, and Yuri was almost at the door when Ivan called out to him across the room.

"You should come back down here sometime, captain. West wing's not that bad once you get used to it."

Yuri's eye twitched, carefully controlling his anger at being called into training as he glanced over his shoulder. It wasn't Ivan's fault. "I do have a name, you know."

Ivan grinned like an idiot. "Sure you do, _captain_."

The boy's enthusiasm for whatever resembled 'life' in the Abbey was contagious, Yuri realised, and he even allowed himself a chuckle as he climbed back up the stairs.


	5. Chapter 5

Yuri turned up at his usual training room to find it locked, the lights and computer screens dark, and he wasted a few minutes stalking up and down the corridors scanning the timetables stuck to the doors. He found his name scribbled in pen outside one of the larger

rooms, an entire four-hour slot blocked out just for him.

His technician was absent as well, replaced by a tall, lithe man in glasses and a lab coat that was slightly too small. The man offered no greeting when he walked in—which was almost worse than the reprimand Yuri had been expecting—and simply signalled with his palm to the other side of the divide without turning away from the computer. Yuri thought he recognised the man’s face, but couldn’t bring up a name to match.

A few taps of a keyboard later and the bright lights flicked on, forcing Yuri to squint to avoid being blinded. Before him stood a dull grey wall, reaching an inch or so above his head. There was a narrow opening in the centre, beyond it another wall, and leading up to it a series of thin, vertical bars that started a metre away from where Yuri stood.

The technician hadn’t said a word to him, but Yuri already knew what his orders would be. He’d been in the same training session before, granted it had been months ago, but he knew precisely what he was about to be asked and knew precisely by how much he was about to fail. Timed circuits were the one method of training that Yuri had quickly worked out he would never fully master.

The run began with a slalom, weaving side to side between the metal bars, where even the slightest miscalculation could send your blade spinning out of control. Once you had navigated the bars, the rest of the circuit became a test of instinct and intuition; the second section hidden behind the grey wall was a maze, a network of twists and turns riddled with obstacles and hidden traps. The wall obscured your view of your blade, forcing you to rely on your connection with your bit-beast alone to stay on the right path. It only took a split-second lapse in concentration to veer off in the wrong direction and bring your run grinding to an unpleasant halt.

The circuit record was four and a half minutes exactly, set years ago by someone Yuri had never met, not that he had a chance of coming anywhere close to it. Wolborg wasn’t designed for such a ridiculous level of speed; her base was too heavy, her ground clearance was too high and her weight-disk was too wide to be aerodynamic. Thankfully the target he was given was any reasonable time below the accepted average, which he recalled to be just under six minutes, and Yuri had loaded and aimed his launcher ready to fire the moment the technician said ‘go’.

He'd just begun his fourth attempt, squeezing Wolborg through the tight slalom before she disappeared from view, when Valkov slammed through the door. Yuri instantly summoned his blade, catching it in his hand and standing to attention.

Valkov glanced at him quickly with stern eyes but said nothing, instead looking over the monitors that showed his current progress. The technician pointed to graphs and charts, but Yuri wasn't able to catch a word of their whispered conversation. Cautiously, he lifted his head just a fraction to steal a glimpse of their supervisor, not enough to accidentally draw attention. Valkov seemed somewhat distracted, not a word Yuri would ever have associated with the man before, almost as if he was reading the information the technician was showing him but not actually taking any of it in.

Yuri stood awkwardly still, his back rigid and his hand gripped so tightly around Wolborg that her attack-ring bit into his palm, waiting for Valkov's instruction and wishing he had just continued the run he had started if only to give himself something to focus on other than the man behind the glass.

"You look on me as if you loathe me, Ivanov." Valkov's blunt statement cut through Yuri's thoughts and caught him off-guard. He hadn't even realised he'd been staring, let alone the fact that Valkov had noticed him doing it.

Words filled in his mouth—of _course_ he loathed the man, how could he not?—but he swallowed them down, forcing his eyes to his feet instead. "Sorry sir."

The backhand across his cheek was unexpected, but before Yuri's head snapped to the side, Valkov roughly grabbed his chin and tilted it up. "I offered you a purpose here, gave you the opportunity to thrive, allowed you to stay despite your defeat, and still you show me _nothing_ but resentment. Would you rather I had left you on the streets of Saint Petersburg?"

"No sir." Yuri's response was instant, though clearly flat and meaningless. He wasn't expected to give a detailed answer. There was a dangerous hint to Valkov's tone that had filled Yuri with unease and he wanted nothing more than to tear his face away from the man's grasp, even if it would infuriate him. There was something hidden behind Valkov's cruel leer that had him frozen to the spot.

"Everything I have given you, everything that has made you who you are, I can take away just as quickly, remember that.” Nails dug into his skin as Valkov's grip tightened, voice laced with a threatening malice. "Unless you wish to face the same punishment as your _friend_?"

Yuri forced himself to swallow and resisted the urge to close his eyes because he couldn't bear to look at the man in front of him. He could easily guess who Valkov was referring to. "No sir."

"Kuznetsov was beaten so severely that he _begged_ for it to stop, were you aware?" Valkov smirked as Yuri choked on air. “No? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised he chose not to share that with you—he has a reputation to uphold, doesn’t he?”

 _Impossible_ , it had to be. Valkov must have been lying; nothing but a ruse, a dirty, underhand attempt to rile him up, to get him to fight back because then the man would have a reason to hit him again. No matter how terrible the punishment was, no matter how painful, Boris would certainly never beg, Yuri was sure of it. He would never allow himself to fall so low. But then Yuri remembered the dejected, lifeless stare Boris had given him, remembered how _broken_ he had looked sat in the food hall, covered in lacerations and bruises and refusing to say a single word, and instead Yuri wondered whether he had overestimated Boris' strength.

Everybody had their limit, and although Boris' was so much higher than most, he was only human, had a breaking point just like everyone else.

Recognition flickered in Valkov's eyes just as pure, unadulterated fear settled in Yuri's gut. "It is genuinely _astonishing_ how loyal you are to him, Ivanov. He is weak, pitiful and completely undeserving of your devotion, yet you still care for him. Am I correct?”

Yuri opened his mouth, hesitating for a half-second as the possible implications of Valkov's words began to sink in. He would do anything for Boris, always would, but the Abbey gave no reward for loyalty or friendship—if anything, attachment was more likely to bring you harm—so he had kept the thought to himself. Except Valkov had noticed, and with the man's hand clenched around his jaw, Yuri was in no position to deny it. "Yes sir."

Valkov hummed thoughtfully, a vile sound that pierced Yuri's ears, and he suddenly sneered as if he had come to a realisation. "Then perhaps we can strike an agreement. For each of your failures and acts of disobedience, for each drop in performance, for every single time you so much as _think_ without my explicit permission to do"—a twisted smile curled Valkov's lips—"I will ensure that Kuznetsov takes the full blame on your behalf."

"Sir—" panic rose in Yuri's throat, strangling anything else he might have said and leaving him breathless.

"Regretfully, however, there may be instances when I am not able to attend his punishment and will be required to leave it in the more than capable hands of our extraordinary science team," Valkov said, sadistic humour dancing in his expression that almost pushed Yuri to tears. “Of course, I cannot guarantee he will be able to function well once they are done with him. Do you understand, Ivanov?"

He had to do something, _say_ something, Boris caused enough trouble for himself without taking on Yuri's mistakes as well and there was no way Yuri could allow Valkov to take advantage of that. "I understand sir, but I—"

Valkov interrupted, unperturbed by the distress that was suffocating Yuri. "You will stay here until you are able to complete the circuit in no more than four minutes. Is that clear?

"Sir, that's—" Yuri had wanted to say it was impossible, until he remembered that the notion of impossibility was something completely foreign to Valkov. What he said instead was a lot worse. "I can't do it."

This time he expected the fist to his stomach, his reward for daring to talk back. Yuri staggered slightly, blinking the pain from his eyes and clenching his jaw, Valkov's fingers still digging into his chin.

"If you truly value Kuznetsov's life, and I sincerely hope you do," Valkov said, a dark whisper that sent a chill through Yuri's entire body, "you will do _precisely_ as I have asked." He pushed Yuri away so forcefully that he struggled to stay on his feet, and Yuri flinched as the training room door slammed shut again.

The finality and the deadly, undeniable threat in Valkov's tone left Yuri standing rooted to the spot, breathing in staggered pants as he tried to get his mind around what had just occurred. There was no doubt that Valkov was using Boris to get him to follow orders, dangling his friend's life in front of his eyes as a constant reminder of exactly who was in control and just how far Valkov was willing to go to ensure Yuri remained obedient.

They were both trapped under Valkov's boot, between them barely able to carry the weight. If Boris escaped, Yuri wouldn't have the strength to survive alone, and if Yuri got out…

Valkov wouldn't _allow_ Boris to survive.

Wolborg's presence blossomed in the back of his mind, and Yuri caught the faint glow surrounding his blade from the corner of his eye, trying to offer comfort that Yuri wasn't able to accept.

Four minutes. There was no _way_ he would be able to complete the circuit in such a short time, even at the peak of his performance. His blade was built for endurance, capable of outlasting nearly any opponent he battled, pure speed wasn't part of his style and never had been. The only person Yuri believed may have been able to achieve Valkov's unthinkable target was Ivan, and even then the boy would have to push both himself and Wyborg to the very limit and beyond to stand a chance.

Yuri wondered briefly just how determined Valkov was to pull through on his threat. He shook his head to clear the thought, already knowing that Valkov wouldn't go back on his word; he had promised to punish Boris for Yuri's failures, and that was exactly what he would do. Yuri could only hope that Valkov didn't plan to leave the Abbey over the next few days; he wouldn't be able to beat the four minute target on the circuit, that was a given, and the thought of Boris being punished at the hands of the Abbey's crazed scientists made him feel physically sick. At least Valkov still held the smallest shred of compassion for life, enough to know when to stop before injuries became fatal.

Even if he only did so to ensure he could continue later on.

A knock on the glass made him jump and he stared at the technician with wide eyes, realising slowly that the man was prompting him to start the circuit. Yuri only noticed he was trembling when he tried to lock Wolborg back onto his launcher, a fearful, frustrated whine tearing from his throat when he failed to even do that much. His hands were still shaking when he stood ready again on the marker and took aim. He had to beat four minutes, _had_ to, otherwise Boris would suffer on his behalf.

Before he'd even fired Wolborg and she’d shot towards the maze, Yuri was already repeating endless apologies in his mind.

Four hours and countless circuits later, Yuri collapsed to the ground. He was exhausted, his body felt numb, long past feeling the intense burn from overexertion. He'd shortened his time to only a few seconds faster than the the six minute average but couldn't achieve any better, in fact, in the last hour he’d only managed to get worse

Yuri wasn't arrogant enough to assume the reason he’d been able to keep trying for so long was due to his own determination. He'd been ready to admit defeat about half-way through, physically unable to give anything more, but Wolborg had sacrificed what little she could spare of her own energy to keep him on his feet, to keep him alert, to force him to _keep going_ as if she were able to sense just how desperate Yuri was. Her strength had surged through him, sparking new life in deadened nerves, but even she was only able to last for so long, and Yuri had felt her gradually drain away until he could barely feel her presence in the back of his mind.

The technician recorded his final results, pathetic as they were, and despite Yuri's frantic pleading and the hopelessness he could hear in his own voice, the man flatly refused to allow him additional time. He'd been given his orders just as Yuri had his own, and he wasn't going to disobey.

Immediately upon being dismissed from the training room, Yuri all but ran through the Abbey and stumbled outside, throwing up the measly lunch he'd eaten into the snow.

He sat by the entrance under the watchful eye of a guard counting the minutes to curfew, too numb to even feel the chill around him. He tried to convince himself that he was stronger than Valkov thought him to be, that Boris was capable of taking whatever the man could throw at him, that together they would both one day walk out of the Abbey through the iron gates that taunted Yuri every time he laid eyes on them.

But, as skillful as Yuri was at lying, and as much as his reputation built him up to be sly and manipulative, Yuri had never been any good at lying to himself. Sergei had told him it was because he was too curious. He couldn’t just take the things he saw before him at face-value without first finding out how and why, he had to know _when_ things had become that way and _who_ had decided it was acceptable and even then he often found he hadn’t learnt enough to form his own opinion.

Sergei was wrong however, the reason Yuri couldn’t lie to himself was because doing so would only strengthen the anxiety in his chest. What good was trying to lie to someone who already knew the truth?

Looking out at what little he could see of the city in the distance, still feeling the guard's unmoving stare on the back of his head, Yuri thought of Kai. Kai who was surely wrapped up in a comfortable bed, who was surrounded every day by his closest friends, who no longer had to cope with the cold, the hunger and the fear that clawed endlessly at every boy in the Abbey.

Yuri hated himself for feeling so jealous, especially when Kai was risking everything for just a slim chance at earning Yuri and the other boys their freedom. He knew he was being selfish, but nothing seemed _fair_ anymore. What exactly had he done to deserve the treatment he received? What exactly had _any_ of them done to deserve it?

The answer was nothing. Absolutely _nothing_.

Yuri had been offered a choice between freezing to death as a child on Saint Petersburg's unforgiving streets and the chance of making something of himself at the Abbey; he wasn't stupid, his answer had been all too easy. Boris' story was almost the same as his own, and from what Yuri had heard, Sergei had been given no choice at all.

A steel-capped boot dug into the base of his spine, a wordless warning that he risked being caught outside after curfew when the Abbey's doors sealed shut for the night. Yuri dragged himself through the corridors, scuffing his feet against the ground on his tortuously slow journey back to his room.

Vasily was hovering expectantly outside his door when he eventually made it to the third floor, advancing on him the moment their eyes met. Yuri backed away, not bothering to mask his exhaustion, but the boy didn't seem to get the hint.

"You know, there's a supplies delivery due in two days' time," Vasily whispered, staring at a point on a faraway wall as his fingers curled around the back of Yuri's neck and pulled him close. “I'd like to think I'm the person to talk to if anyone wants anything _delivered_." He didn't even look down, just clapped his hand on Yuri’s should and left him alone to work out the rest. It answered a niggling question in Yuri's mind, at least, and he wondered if Sergei was aware of what his roommate got up to behind the scenes.

Sighing, Yuri settled back on his bed knowing exactly what he would be responding to Kai. He took the paper and pencil from their secret spot and chucked his pillow to the side so that he could see his writing in the moonlight. He'd help Kai with whatever he needed, and if he had to keep silent about it, he would do.

If Kai could get them out then Yuri was willing to take the risk, no matter how great. If not for his own selfish dreams, if not to give Sergei back the life he'd lost when the Abbey's doors closed on him, if not even for the boys like Ivan who had resigned themselves to being enslaved when they clearly had so much more to offer.

Then he would do it for Boris, before he lost his life to Valkov's insanity.


	6. Chapter 6

Yuri groaned, wishing for nothing more than to lie down, to let the cold floor ease the burning sensation that spread through his body. Valkov had stepped up his training programme a multitude of notches, back-to-back sessions with barely a second to breathe, let alone recover. With the pressure weighing down on him and the sleepless nights that had plagued him ever since the finals nearly a month ago, Yuri could tell his performance was starting to suffer. He still achieved every target Valkov set, but he knew he could have been faster, could have been stronger, could have done _more_.

Valkov noticed too, unsurprising when his results were printed in clear black and white, so the man pushed him harder and further and targets quickly became ridiculous numbers that sailed well over Yuri's capability. Valkov took immense pleasure in constantly reminding him who would take the blame should he fail.

He managed to change into his sleepwear and climb the ladder to the top bunk before collapsing face down onto the mattress. His entire body ached, muscles already growing stiff from overuse, and Yuri could feel the strain in his arms from launching Wolborg a hundred times over until Valkov was satisfied that his action and timing were just _perfect_ , before ordering him to practice the exact move a hundred times again.

Yuri wasn't sure how much more he could take before he completely exhausted himself.

Sleep evaded him as usual, leaving him lying awake on his back staring up at the ceiling that was only a few feet away from his face. All of the rooms in the Abbey were cramped, held either one or two sets of bunk beds and a small basin, nothing more. Each floor shared two dark, filthy toilet cubicles that everyone tried to avoid using—if you didn’t have time during training hours, you simply didn’t go. Yuri still felt he was lucky to have with a room with a window, despite the freezing draft that swept through the room in winter. He’d lost count of the number of hours he’d wasted simply staring out at the Russian countryside; a splash of colour in his otherwise dull, grey stone surroundings.

Without warning, his mind flickered over to Kai and the letter still tucked into the lining of his coat, wondering whether his response had got through yet. If Yuri were to be entirely honest, he truly did envy Kai. Not for the fact that he no longer had to endure the Abbey, not necessarily for his freedom either, and certainly not for his friends. No, Yuri envied him for all the little things he was sure the boy had; a warm bed, a full plate, time to just _think_.

If Kai's plan worked, and for once Yuri allowed himself to hope, it might not be too long before he could have those little things as well.

He was still staring blankly at nothing when he heard his door creak open, the dim light in the hallway casting an eerie shadow along the ceiling. Boris peered through the gap.

"Yura? You awake?" he asked, and Yuri would have been lying if he said he didn't notice how strained the boy's voice sounded. As if he'd been shouting—Yuri didn't want to think about why.

Rolling to his side, Yuri forced his mind to ignore the tingle of pain throbbing through his whole body and met Boris' eyes. Even in the dark he could see the bruising on the boy's face, the way he was almost hunched over, arms wrapped protectively across his chest. He may have been well enough for basic training, but the past two weeks had done little to heal his injuries.

Wordlessly, Boris slid past the door and eased it shut. He didn't turn around immediately and Yuri picked out the scuffs and tears in the back of his jacket.

"Why didn't you tell me?" The words were out of Yuri's mouth before he could rein them in, and he almost regretted them when Boris' shoulders sagged and he leaned heavily against the wall. Boris had always been the stronger one; the polar opposite to Yuri—the fearless brawler versus the sly manipulator—yet Yuri could almost _see_ the despair rolling from him.

"Tell you what?" Boris' voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. He knew full well what Yuri was referring to, but clearly refused to be the first to admit it.

Sitting up on his bed, Yuri instinctively pulled the thin sheets tighter around him as if they could provide safety. Something had changed in his friend, he could sense it, and it was even worse than when the boy had returned from his year-long training in isolation.

Whoever stood hunched by his door now wasn't even the same boy who had crept into his room late at night just over a month ago. He hadn't said anything then, just lay down on the empty bottom bunk and slept, but his mere presence and his silent promise of support no matter what happened had helped alleviate Yuri's growing anxiety over the championship.

Now it seemed that Boris was barely able to support his own weight, let alone Yuri's problems as well.

The only thing that had happened between then and now was the tournament final and the punishment he had endured as a result. Boris was capable of taking the worst beating and standing back up as if it were nothing but a scratch, anger covered pain far more easily than perhaps was healthy for him. Boris had never allowed himself to be affected by the outcome of any of his battles—granted, he rarely lost—but it seemed like the battle against Rei Kon had taken its toll.

"You threw your match, Borya," Yuri said quietly, unable to help feeling like his words were damning Boris to an endless suffering. To deliberately lose anything was unheard of in the Abbey, the bottom line had always been that they fought to win or they died trying, God help anyone who dared to do any different.

Boris sighed—a weak, dejected sound if ever Yuri heard one—and limped his way to the bottom bunk without looking up. "I wasn’t planning to."

"You still could’ve told me, told me you’d thought about it." Yuri peered over the cold metal rail of his bunk and stared at the top of Boris' bowed head.

"I only decided in the last round."

Yuri frowned, confused by how Boris could make such a brash decision at the very last moment, without having time to think it through. “What changed your mind?”

He watched Boris scuff his foot on the ground. “Do you know what my orders were?” Boris tilted his head back, catching Yuri with tired eyes. “‘Complete domination’, whatever it took to win, and if that meant—” His words caught in his throat and he dropped his gaze back to the floor.

Yuri didn’t have to ask him to continue, he was capable of piecing the rest together himself. Boris’ orders had been to kill if necessary. He didn’t want to ask his next question, wasn’t quite sure he was ready to hear the answer, but he _needed_ to know.

“Why didn’t you?”

“ _Why_?” A sharp laugh escaped Boris’ lips and dissolved into a sorrowful whine. He glanced haphazardly around the room, looking everywhere but up at Yuri. “What would that have made me?” A monster, no better than Valkov. “Rei Kon had something to fight for, Yura; his team, his friends, his life—what was I fighting for?”

It was rhetorical, Yuri didn’t need to reply. They fought for Valkov and nothing else, except for their own survival. But what made Rei’s life so much more precious? He had his team, so did Boris. He had his friends, again so did Boris. Rei would’ve been missed by the people that cared about him, and so would Boris.

“I couldn’t kill him, didn’t matter what my orders were or what Valkov did to me after. If I had…” Boris whispered, voice thick with emotion Yuri didn’t want to put a name to. “I don’t think I could’ve lived with myself.”

Yuri gasped quietly, his hand flying to his mouth. His eyes stung, the prospect of losing his closest friend—the one person he trusted and cared for more than anyone—tugged at his heart more than he would ever dare to admit. Boris had deliberately lost because his only other option would have left him wanting to take his own life. He didn’t know that Valkov had planned to do it for him, didn’t know that the only thing now standing between him and death was Yuri’s ability to meet Valkov’s ever increasing demands.

Pressure hit Yuri’s chest like a concrete wall, breaking bone and crushing his lungs.

He’d heard rumours banded around the food hall and through the corridors that Boris had been kept under constant supervision for the past two weeks, which explained why Yuri hadn't seen him even once. Judging by the fact that Boris was still obviously suffering from injuries that should have at least started to fade by now, Yuri couldn't help but wonder whether he'd been forced back into the care of the specialist trainers who had previously watched over him for a year. Yuri didn't know the details of what went on in the science building, didn't even want to guess.

Valkov hadn't taken it easy on Boris in the days following the finals, if the state of him when he finally was able to show his face in the food hall was any indication, and whilst it seemed that violence wasn't necessarily Valkov's preferred form of punishment for Boris' loss any longer, it was becoming clear that he still wasn't going to allow him to forget it.

Especially if Yuri continued to fail.

Yuri heard Boris hiss, removing his jacket with stiff arms and easing himself down onto the bunk. It had been a risk, substituting the loud-mouthed Ivan who at the time Yuri knew barely anything about and playing Boris on the final team, a risk that clearly hadn't paid off. Valkov would have been just as angry with his own bad decision as he was with the fact that Boris had dared to act against him, and Boris had paid for _both_ of those mistakes. Surely he must have known what would be waiting for him when he returned without a win; was Rei Kon’s life really worth that much to him?

No, Yuri realised, it wasn’t the fact that it was Rei standing before him, it could have been anyone and the result would’ve been the same. Boris hadn’t thrown the match because he didn’t want to kill Rei, he’d thrown it because he refused to be Valkov’s puppet anymore.

"What about you?" Boris asked, “you’re supposed to be the strongest blader here, why didn’t you win?”

Yuri didn’t have an answer to that, not one that he was willing to share anyway. Explaining that he had blacked out during his match would only have made Boris worry, and Boris had a tendency to lash out when Yuri’s welfare was apparently in danger. Boris was treading on very thin ice as it was, the last thing Yuri wanted to do was shatter it. He sighed, trying to make it sound nonchalant, though he doubted Boris was fooled. "I don't know."

A thud echoed in the tiny room as Boris' fist hit the wall, and Yuri felt the pain reverberate in his own heart. His breath caught in his throat and he swallowed, not wanting to show weakness in front of the boy on the bottom bunk. He considered moving down from his bed to sit on the ground and offer what little he could in the way of comfort, but he knew Boris wouldn't appreciate the gesture. Boris had made it perfectly clear in the past that he preferred to suffer alone.

"Have you seen Seriy?" Yuri asked instead, hoping to steer the conversation away from himself.

"No. Vasya said he's in Saint Petersburg."

Sergei had told Yuri once that he trusted Vasily, so he had no reason not to take the older boy's words as the truth. For the entire year Boris had been taken away from him, Yuri had envied his and Sergei's friendship. It was a lot easier to survive in the Abbey when you had someone to share your misery with.

No doubt Valkov had taken Sergei with him to Saint Petersburg to try to prove that he had achieved at least one positive result from his sickening regime. Not that it would negate that fact that the one who had the most riding on him—Yuri himself—had tripped disastrously at the final hurdle. And after Boris’ act of defiance, Yuri was glad he wasn't the one on the receiving end of the Director's wrath.

Anger churned under his skin and Yuri hoped Valkov suffered immensely for their failures.

Silence descended in the room, awkward and uncomfortable and Yuri almost wanted to writhe under the weight of it. Boris' breathing had evened out, shallow and rasping slightly, Yuri realised he'd fallen asleep and suddenly felt alone. His own mind was still far too active to even consider sleeping, the pain in his arms and the ache that settled in his entire body reminding him of how far they had fallen following the tournament, and with Valkov's threat looming over his head, just how much further they had left to fall.

He was no idiot; he'd given up faith in his future a long time ago and no longer saw the point in hoping for miracles. Their only chance of escaping the four cold walls of the Abbey now stood on the other side of the gates, and even then, the chance was slim.

Boris coughed dryly, interrupting Yuri's thoughts, and he heard movement on the bunk below. "I _never_ trusted Hiwatari," Boris said quietly, "he's the Director's grandson—blatantly obvious he wasn't gonna end up staying with us."

Yuri hummed but said nothing. He had originally wanted to tell Boris about his exchange with Kai, but now decided against it. To get a message in from the outside was difficult enough, and to get a reply back out risked severe punishment. He knew Boris would be furious to find out that Yuri had deliberately put himself in the firing line, just as Yuri knew that it wouldn't be himself suffering for it if he had been caught. But even if the chance that Kai could help them was almost zero, as their captain and their _friend_ , Yuri had to try. Boris wouldn't understand; just like every other boy in the Abbey he only saw Kai as a traitor, Yuri himself had been no different until the day he'd received the letter.

The bed frame shook and Boris' head appeared at the top of the ladder a moment later, signalling with a nod for Yuri to make room. Boris kicked off his boots and heaved himself up onto the top bunk, lying down on his side and curling slightly around Yuri's crossed legs. There was barely enough space for Yuri alone, yet he was glad Boris had decided to join him. Two weeks apart was long enough.

That awful silence returned, and after the third time Boris visibly winced as he tried to get comfortable, Yuri rolled his eyes. "Where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere?" Boris replied sarcastically, grumbling under his breath when he noticed Yuri's expectant stare. He gingerly stretched his arm around his back, indicating vaguely to his right side.

Yuri nodded, the need to at least try to make Boris a little more comfortable temporarily overriding his thoughts.

"Take your shirt off and lie on your stomach," he ordered, sliding down the ladder and feeling blindly under his bunk for the stolen towel he had hidden there, sandwiched between the slatted base and his mattress. He couldn't hear any movement above him and glanced back up to see that Boris had merely slumped over. "You still need to take your shirt off, Borya."

"Eager, aren't you?" It was muffled by the pillow, but Yuri was glad to hear the familiar taunt in Boris' voice, very much preferring it to the carefully disguised misery from earlier.

He soaked the towel under freezing water from the basin, wringing it only a little before folding it into a square. Yuri caught Boris struggling to lift his arm to properly remove his shirt but didn't offer to help, knowing that it would only irritate him. Boris lay back down with a grunt, knocking his shirt over the railing to the floor.

Yuri knelt over Boris' legs and couldn't help but grimace as he took in the state of his friend's back; he'd seen the scars before, stretched out like a mosaic, but he only had to take one look at the heavy purple bruising decorating the length of his right flank to understand why Boris could barely move. Yuri couldn't help but see it as his failure to meet the four minute target on the circuit painted over Boris' skin.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing," Boris hissed as Yuri pressed the cold towel over his injury, fingers tightening their grip on the pillowcase. The bruise was thick and looked suspiciously similar to the size and shape of the metal batons the guards carried with them. For once, Yuri believed him; he was in no doubt that whatever punishment Boris had received was a result of Yuri's inability to keep up with Valkov's demanding training.

Yuri worked as gently as he could, eventually opting to lay the towel across Boris' skin when he twitched from the pain. He hoped it would help with the swelling at least, settling back on his heels and rubbing his eyes, suddenly feeling drained. He stayed quiet for a long while, growing more concerned when Boris' refused to release his grip on the pillowcase. Yuri knew that the bruise must have been tender, but for Boris to still be in agony even though he was resting was unusual, and Yuri started to wonder if there might be more to it. "You should go for a medical, get them to check for internal—"

"I'm _fine_ , they gave me a four," Boris insisted, irritation already working its way into his tone and warning Yuri off.

Yuri paid no heed to the warning, so used to hearing it that it barely touched his ears. "That was weeks ago, I can tell _this_ is recent.” He abandoned gentleness in favour of checking Boris over himself, pressing his fingers against the centre of the bruising. He traced each rib, ignoring the agitated growl that escaped Boris' lips and the way he flinched under Yuri's touch. If Boris wasn't willing to go back to the medical ward that was up to him, but he was clearly stupid if he thought Yuri was going to just let him walk around without _someone_ checking his injuries.

It was difficult to tell through the swelling, but Yuri couldn't feel anything out of place. Of course, Yuri was no doctor so his own diagnosis was practically worthless, and he had no way of checking for any internal damage. He sighed, rearranged the towel on Boris' back and slowly moved over on the bunk so that he could sit at Boris' side again.

"You really should go," he suggested, knowing that his words were falling on deaf ears but trying regardless. He glanced at Boris' face where it was half buried in the pillow, frowning when he noticed that his friend's finger was clenched between his teeth. "Especially if it's _that_ bad."

Boris practically spat his finger from his mouth and twisted his head around, scowling. "Why do you always have to get involved?" he asked, voice matching the anger in his eyes, "I said I'm _fine_."

Yuri scoffed, annoyed by Boris' blatant disregard for his own wellbeing, not that it was anything new to him. "Because I don't believe you—there are some things you _can't_ hide from me, Borya, pain is one of them.” He lay what he hoped was a comforting hand on his friend's shoulder and Boris' scowl deepened.

Cursing, Boris suddenly turned his head away, signalling the end of the conversation. He pulled the sheets across his back as best he could and tucked his arms under his head, breathing slowly evening out and leaving the room in silence.

Yuri spent the night wide awake, sitting on his bunk and watching Boris sleep, hoping that the boy's injuries were only superficial and wondering whether he was making an incredibly stupid mistake by leaving their fate in Kai's hands.


	7. Chapter 7

Yuri stared bleakly at the shards of broken metal lying around him, Wolborg still spinning gloriously in the centre of the dish. The standard issue beyblades loaded into the launchers had long since stopped being a threat, and he barely had to pay attention to whatever his own blade was doing anymore.

It was basic training; Yuri had been doing it day in, day out for nearly nine years, so Wolborg's instinct alone was enough to ensure he exceeded the targets the computers set for him. He'd been working in silence for a few hours now, aside from the commotion in the bowl. The technician that had come into the small training room to check up on him had set himself up at the computer station and not said a single word since, and for that, Yuri was immensely thankful.

Usually he was able to use his practice sessions against the mechanical launchers as an opportunity to phase out, focus his mind away from whatever was bothering him, and end the session feeling calm and refreshed. But for a reason he couldn't fathom, there was something bothering him that he just couldn't shake. It wasn't Kai, whilst he was anxious to get another letter he knew he had to be patient. It wasn't Boris that bothered him, Yuri had been living with the boy for long enough to know when his thoughts centred around his friend. No, whatever it was, it was so deeply ingrained in his mind that he just couldn't reach it, toying between suspicion and apprehension but settling on neither, only leaving him with a sense of unease.

Something was happening, something that made the Abbey feel… _different_ , for lack of a better word. He just couldn't work out what was causing it.

He flicked out his wrist, his blade faithfully leaping from the dish to his waiting hand, and ran his thumb over the bit-chip. Even though Wolborg had been repaired immediately after the championship, Valkov had ordered another upgrade for her and there was no doubting that the improvements had only made her stronger, quicker across the dish, and more deadly in her attack. He wished she could speak to him, but only felt the familiar, comforting warmth flicker in the back of his mind.

The technician in the next room knocked on the thick glass pane that protected him and the machinery he worked on from the destruction Yuri had caused in the dish, and on auto-pilot, Yuri clipped his launcher to his belt and stepped around the divide to check his results. He was above target in every measurable aspect, as expected, and declined the printout he was offered. He didn't need a slip of paper to tell him something he already knew, only hoped that he'd done enough to please Valkov.

Yuri stopped outside the training room and frowned at the emptiness of the dark corridor stretching either side of him. Normally the centre was alive with noise and movement, the excitement of winners and the misery of losers. Now, however, it was eerily quiet. He sighed heavily, tucking his arms around himself and picking a direction at random. He had nothing booked for an hour until he was due for another training session and his mind absently wondered back to his previous results.

He still struggled with Valkov's own demanding targets, but in terms of his work with the technicians, Yuri had met every benchmark that had been set for him, achieved every goal and overcame every obstacle. Even now, in the eyes of the technical team if not in Valkov's, he was still a model student. Yet it didn't explain how he'd managed to lose the final round to Takao in the championship. No matter how many times Yuri pitted himself against a mechanical opponent who was programmed to the same specifications as Takao's own beyblade and battle style, he hadn't lost once—hadn't even come close to losing, in fact. Of course, there was no way of emulating Takao's Dragoon beast, and even by upping speed and attack statistics, there was no real way of confirming whether they were anywhere near Takao's actual numbers.

Worrying about the past wasn't something he was usually prone to do, but the fact that he couldn't remember half of his match had grated on his nerves ever since the officials had announced the final result.

A faint cry caught his attention, so quiet he thought he may have just imagined it until he heard it again. He paused on his way back through the training centre, ignoring the odd stares he received from the few technicians there as he backtracked and instead made his way down into the East wing's engineering block.

The cry became louder, Yuri instantly recognising it as the desperate call of a caged bird, and he wasn't at all shocked to see what, or more specifically, _who_ , was causing it.

"You!" A dark-haired man in a crisp white lab coat stood up sharply and rushed to his side as Yuri pushed through a heavy door, the clipboard in his hand clattering to the ground. "You shouldn't be down here, if—"

"Just one minute, that's all I want." Yuri shot the man the best pleading gaze he could muster, and it seemed to work as the man backed down with a slight nod. He once had nearly everyone in the department wrapped around his little finger until the championship, and was glad to see that he still demanded a small shred of respect.

Yuri moved further into the room, glancing across at computer screens that showed the parts and statistics of Boris' beyblade, graphs flickering up and down as calculations were made and changed, altering everything on the screen. Falborg himself was the cause of all the noise, and Yuri wasn't surprised. The great falcon was trapped in a small column in the centre of the room, slamming repeatedly against the sides with enough force to shatter the glass, had the engineers not been clever enough to have already reinforced his prison.

He figured Boris hadn't been practising much with his bit-beast since the championship. It made some sense, Boris' unique ability to manipulate the air itself into a vicious weapon could easily be turned against Valkov in a heartbeat, but without Falborg as the driving force, the skill was useless. Yuri wondered whether Falborg had been trapped underground ever since Boris' match in the finals. No bird liked to be caged; Yuri knew that, especially not one as powerful as Falborg. Yuri laid his hand against the column, gazing up at the beast as he turned his head to the side, watching Yuri with one dark, beady eye.

He found himself wondering what Falborg had thought of Boris' actions during the final match; whether he'd understood that Boris had no desire to win. Falborg had certainly started off strong, straight off the launch he'd gathered enough momentum to chip a sizable chunk from the metal rim of the dish. He hadn't held back in raising biting wind strong enough to tear at Rei's skin—a specific order from Valkov's own demented mind, no doubt, for the rule books could offer nothing against a force you couldn't actually see.

But like all bit-beasts, Falborg was tied to his owner's demands, and Yuri wished he could have seen into Falborg's mind at each and every moment he was ordered to create opportunities to destroy, only for Boris to pull him back at the last second and let those opportunities go to waste. Yuri had looked on from the balcony in the stadium, had watched the replay of the match afterwards, and even he could physically see the hesitation in Boris' bit-beast. As always, Boris' determination to see the match through to its inevitable conclusion astounded him.

The mournful cry started up again as Yuri turned around and left the room, but he refused to look back.

Yuri sighed as he made his way through the corridors to the food hall, tucking Wolborg into his pocket. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the sight of Takao's beaming face and the warmth of the boy's hand as it shook his own. He'd wasted too many sleepless nights lost in thought—when he wasn't resisting the urge to get Kai's letter out again—trying to force his mind to recall what had actually happened during the second half of his match and coming up with nothing every time.

He'd blacked out, that much was almost glaringly obvious, yet still his body had somehow carried on with the battle. Even Wolborg had gone berserk, must have sensed her owner's unfocused mental state and resorted to basic survival instinct; unfortunately the ice that tore through the stadium had thrown off the cameras, leaving Yuri with nothing but blurred images to review.

The food hall was nearly empty when he pushed through the heavy double doors, and Yuri wasn't sure whether to be thankful for it meant less noise for him to put up with, or irritated as whatever was served on his plate would no doubt be cold.

Yuri spotted Boris' lone figure in his usual seat at their usual table, absently wondering whether it should feel odd how easily even the newer boys in the Abbey settled into an unwavering routine that boiled all the way down to where they sat to eat. Boris sat with his back to the wall, keeping a clear view of everyone else in the hall and the main entrance. Yuri sat opposite, slightly to his right so as to not block his line of sight, which gave him the opportunity to gaze out through the window onto the Abbey grounds and stare longingly at the iron gates that never opened.

Nobody but Sergei and Vasily—and Ivan, oddly enough, at least in the final days of the championship—dared to sit with them, Boris' mere presence made sure of that.

He eyed the tray that was handed to him with disdain; a bowl of grim looking soup that was calculated to be nutritiously balanced and smelled like sour milk, and a slither of dry, stale bread.

Yuri took his seat at the table and uncapped a water bottle, pouring a good quarter of it onto his tray in the hopes that it might soak into the bread and at least make it partially edible. Boris cocked an eyebrow at his behaviour, but refused to comment further. Odd, as Boris was usually the one to start talking.

After five minutes of silence, in which Yuri decided he could see nothing through the window except snow, he gave Boris a mock-content sigh. "I exceeded my targets again today."

Boris merely nodded and shot another suspicious glance around the hall, absently stirring his soup but never eating it.

Yuri had picked up on his friend's apparent unease from the moment he sat down, and seeing that whatever was causing it was bothering Boris enough to silence him, decided to question him on it. "Everything alright?"

Boris frowned into his bowl. "Something's happening," he said quietly, glancing at the uniformed men that surrounded the food hall. "They aren't showing it but you can tell something's not right."

"What do you mean?" To Yuri, the guards had become a nothing more than a feature, an ornament that he rarely took any notice of. For all he cared they may as well have been painted on the walls. The only guard that _did_ concern him was Levitsky because of his position at Valkov’s side, but he hadn’t seen the man for a while.

"I've missed three sessions with Barinov this week alone, Yura, and I've barely been in training." Boris explained, stunning Yuri slightly with the urgency in his voice. "Valkov’s _never_ let me miss sessions. Something's not right, I can just feel it."

"Maybe he doesn't think you need them anymore?" Yuri offered, shrugging and feigning indifference to cover up his concern; Boris had been one of the doctor’s patients for years. The niggling feeling from earlier suddenly exploded in his mind, sending tremors through his nerves and leaving him with the strange sensation of feeling breathless without actually being out of breath.

Boris scoffed, disbelief twisting his expression. "Don't be stupid, surely you've noticed this place has changed?" He made the mistake of catching Boris' eye, and couldn't shake the feeling that the boy was looking straight into him.

He didn't necessarily want to accept it, but the facts were almost undeniable. Boris was right. It hadn't been obvious at first, Yuri had noticed that the odd training session had slipped Valkov's mind and he was no longer punished for every petty thing he did wrong. Even Boris looked a little livelier than he had done for weeks. He'd put it down to Valkov being under stress from the Director and had barely allowed himself to be thankful for the slight reduction in pressure, knowing it could pick up again at any moment.

In Valkov's absence, like the good soldier he was, Yuri still took himself to the training centre. If he couldn’t find an available technician to work with, he would search for an empty room and run his own practice sessions. He tried to convince himself that he did so for lack of anything better to do, though he knew that truthfully he kept pushing himself so that when Valkov did return to his usual routine, he wouldn't be disappointed.

But when the odd gap in his schedule turned into a few in a row, when the number of technicians seemed to dwindle down to zero and when he suddenly realised he’d spent two whole days training alone, Yuri had been forced to acknowledge that something was _very_ wrong.

Of course, just like many of the other boys, Yuri had his own theories for Valkov's seemingly growing distraction, but a part of Yuri still wanted to deny what his heart was desperately trying to tell him for fear of being wrong. So many times before he had got his hopes up, only to watch those hopes instantly shredded before his eyes.

"I have a confession," Yuri murmured, chest tightening with a sudden fear over what he was intending to admit. Boris merely glanced up from his bowl, silently urging him to continue with a quirked eyebrow. "I've been writing to Kai—"

The reaction was instant and just as Yuri expected, Boris' spoon fell from his hand and anger exploded in his eyes. "Hiwatari?" he spat, "why—hell, Yura, if you’d been caught—"

"I know, I know!" Yuri interrupted, trying to placate his friend by raising his hands, Boris' furious whisper had caught the attention of a nearby guard and he hardly wanted his admission to go public. "But I _wasn't_ caught." Boris probably wouldn't have been sat with him otherwise; Valkov would have made sure of that.

"Beside the point." Boris was sat completely upright, narrowed eyes boring straight into Yuri's. His fists were clenched so tightly on the table they had started to tremble, knuckles stained white, a tell-tale sign that Boris was struggling to keep himself calm. Yuri had noticed the boy's habits not long after becoming friends with him, and had committed every little thing to memory; he knew he was testing the limit.

"Borya, listen to me carefully." His words came across as more of a desperate plea than a demand, and Yuri felt disgusted that he'd even uttered them. He shook his head quickly and focused back on the moment, he needed Boris to understand. "Kai thinks he can help us get out of here. You know I've always said that if there was a chance then I wouldn't think twice about taking it."

"What about me?" Boris asked quietly, scowling into his bowl.

Yuri was confused, did Boris think he was only referring to getting himself out? Surely the boy didn't honestly think Yuri would leave him behind—they were in this together, after all. "What about you?"

"I've been trying to get us out for years. I've already told you, all I need to do is find a way over the wall—" His friend's voice had risen again, and Yuri quickly jumped in before he drew too much attention.

"You don't understand, do you? Kai thinks he can get us _all_ out." Yuri tried to reason, irritated when Boris merely rolled his eyes. "I don't mean another escape attempt, he thinks he can shut Biovolt down for good."

The boy opposite him sneered. "And you believe him? He betrayed us, don't forget that. And he's the Director's grandson, damn it." His hands were clenched on the table again.

"I trust him." It was an honest admission. Yuri had no reason _not_ to trust Kai, not now.

"You _what_?" Boris made a sound that resembled a distraught laugh. "So that's it then, is it?"

"You've lost me," Yuri murmured, unable to shake the feeling that he was completely misunderstanding the situation.

"Ever since the tournament you haven't once mentioned Hiwatari, you haven't even mentioned anything about getting messages out—you've just been doing it behind everyone's back. It's like you've forgotten who your friends are, _Ivanov_." His fist slammed onto the table and Yuri drew back slightly; Boris rarely called him purely by his last name, no matter how worked up he was. Surely the idea of escaping for good should have been a _joyful_ one? A thought crossed Yuri's mind and he took a wild guess at what had annoyed his friend so much.

"Borya, are you jealous?"

"Of _him_? Hell no," Boris spluttered, face flushing instantly. It was blatant lie that Yuri saw straight through. He was about to open his mouth when Boris stood up suddenly and snatched his half-empty bowl from the table, giving Yuri a disapproving glare that left him feeling cold. "I just hadn't realised we'd started keeping _secrets_ from each other."


	8. Chapter 8

When Yuri opened his door one evening to see a dark-haired boy crying on the bottom bunk, he actually double-checked the room number to make sure he was in the right place. His outdoor coat was hung on the corner of the bed frame, but for a split-second the sight hadn't meant anything. Preparing for the worst, Yuri forced himself into his practised shroud of cold, hard indifference and took a confident step forward The boy jumped when the door slammed.

"Who are you?" Yuri asked, irritation flooding his voice. The most likely explanation was that the boy was his new roommate—he didn't want another just yet; two years of living in such a confined area with Aleksandr had given him a good reason to appreciate having his own space. He wouldn't be able to keep his link to Kai a secret with someone else in the room, that much was certain.

The boy looked up, blinking away tears. A reddish mark marred his cheek and he carried dark shadows under his eyes that Yuri was sure matched his own. "Piotr." He hesitated for a second before jerking his hand forward.

Yuri nodded but refused the handshake. The only boy he had heard of called Piotr had left the Abbey a little over a year ago. He didn't think he recognised the stranger sat in front of him, which was odd as Yuri had an excellent memory for faces at least. Though when he considered just how many people joined and left the Abbey without Yuri ever meeting them, the thought didn't mean much. "Care to explain why you're in my room?"

"This is 309, isn't it?" the boy asked, wiping at his face with the cuff of his sleeve.

"It is. Are you my new roommate?" His cool facade wilted slightly when Piotr only managed a ghost of a smile and shook his head before fresh tears welled in his eyes.

With a sigh, Yuri perched on the edge of the mattress and rested his arms over his knees. "Why are you here?" he asked again, quickly becoming frustrated with the sobbing mess of a boy beside him. Piotr only looked a few years younger than him at the most, so should have known better than to display such an obvious sign of weakness.

"Fine," Yuri muttered when it became clear he wasn't going to get a reply, "I have the top bunk, you sleep down here. And don't scream if you wake up to find someone else in the room." He'd given the same line to Aleksandr when he’d been pushed through the door for the first time, but the boy still came close to fainting when he opened his eyes one night to see Boris sneering down at him.

Piotr nodded his acceptance of Yuri's terms, chewing absently on his lower lip in a way that implied he had something heavy on his mind. He didn't have the decency to look away as Yuri changed into his sleepwear. Yuri wouldn't have cared were it not for the fact that the boy was blatantly _staring_ , though he took some pleasure from the immediate flush in Piotr's cheeks when he shot an irritated glare across the room.

The boy gave a small cough once Yuri had settled under his bed sheets and Yuri resisted the urge to groan, realising that Piotr was readying himself to finally talk. "I'm not your new roommate," he whispered.

"I already know that," Yuri said, rolling his eyes, "it doesn't explain why you're here though, does it?"

"Sergei said I could stay for tonight." Piotr seemed to have pulled confidence out of nowhere, his voice no longer holding the pathetic, wavering sorrow.

" _Seriy_ sent you?" Yuri unfolded from his sheets and all but flung himself over the railing of his bunk, staring down at Piotr with disbelief. Sergei hadn't mentioned anything to him about the boy still perched on the lower bed, and although Yuri was almost exhausted to the point of collapse, he knew he would’ve remembered Sergei telling him something so important.

Piotr fiddled with the loose threads of his mattress for a long, silent moment, before eventually tilting his head back to face Yuri. It didn't take long at all for the tears to spring back to his eyes, whatever confidence he had discovered previously draining away in an instant. Yuri knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't help but imagine what had happened to the boy to make him so upset in the first place, whether it was related to the fact that he couldn't apparently stay in his own room. He swore inwardly, confused and annoyed that Sergei had stepped in to help the boy by offering Yuri's instead; he was no carer, and from the muffled sniffling sounds coming from the bunk below, Piotr needed a lot of caring for.

Yuri lay back on his bunk, smothered his face with his pillow and tried to ignore the noise, even managed to convince himself he could hear nothing but silence for a few minutes, but he was only human. Forcing a sigh through his nose he eventually relented, rolling over so he could peer over the bed rail again. "Stop crying, for god's sake." It wasn't kind, but the Abbey had never been a place for kindness.

"Sorry—"

"Don't apologise either." Yuri bit out, interrupting before Piotr could stutter anything else.

"Sorr—I mean, right." The boy gave a final sniff before his whimpering stopped altogether.

Yuri crossed his arms over the metal rail and smacked his forehead into his open hand. He cursed his older friend again, wondering why he'd been nominated him to look after Piotr; it had always been Sergei’s job to watch over the other boys when they got into trouble.

He dropped the short distance to the floor, dragging his sheets down with him. "Move over," he ordered, standing expectantly at the side of Piotr's bunk. The boy stared up at him with wide eyes, and Yuri was almost taken aback by the fear he saw swirling behind them. "I won't bite."

"But…" Piotr swallowed thickly, something Yuri picked up on with a growing sense of concern. If Piotr should fear anyone it should be Valkov, not the boy who was supposed to be looking after him. Aleksandr had clung to Yuri like a limpet when they had been roomed together, all too eager to please and do exactly what Yuri asked of him in order to take advantage of Yuri's status amongst the other boys in the Abbey. Nobody would bother you if you befriended someone powerful, after all.

Yet here was Piotr, kicked out of his room for a reason Yuri didn't care to find out, friendless and unwanted, cowering away from Yuri as if he were something hideous. Completely oblivious to the fact that Yuri was trying to _help_ him. It was quickly becoming apparent that Piotr was afraid of being so close to someone else, though Yuri put it down to simply not being used to it before his mind could wonder to other— _darker_ _—_ possibilities.

Yuri huffed and dropped his arms to his sides, sheets pooling on the ground. "It's cold in here at night," he explained slowly, "I normally take the sheets from your bunk as well; either you move over and share or you freeze to death in your sleep."

A shudder ran through Piotr's entire body. "What if we're caught?"

“We won’t be.” It was only a half-lie; the chances of being disturbed so late were less than slim, but certainly not impossible. The guards that patrolled the corridors did so in the hopes of catching someone out of their room after curfew, they very rarely bothered checking in the rooms themselves. Piotr hesitated for a long moment before finally shifting so that Yuri could slide in next to him, watching him arrange the sheets to cover both their bodies.

Yuri frowned as he thought back over the boy's words and wondered whether his fear of sharing a bunk was related to his fear of being caught doing so. Yuri wasn't naive; he knew from experience—and certainly not a pleasant one—precisely what could happen behind closed doors.

The first lesson you learnt, and the one that stuck with you until the end, was that he weak faded whilst the strong thrived. But getting to the top by yourself was near impossible because everyone else was trying to step on you to get there first. Yuri had always seen it like climbing a ladder, except there was always someone on the rung above you trying to kick you back down again.

Protection was probably the most sought after thing in the Abbey, someone to cover you whilst you climbed, to grab your arm and drag you up. Someone like Sergei.

But everything had a price, and since nobody could pay with money, not that any of the boys had anything to spend it on anyway, protection was bought either in exchange for secrets or, more often than not, as blackmail. If you didn’t have anything worthwhile to offer, you got nothing in return.

The thing about survival instinct, Yuri realised, was that it made people willing to do things to survive that they would never have dreamt about doing otherwise. When you were that desperate to succeed, you were driven to manipulating and abusing others in any way possible—or you allowing others to manipulate and abuse _you_ —to ensure you reached the top.

If that meant giving up your own body to someone else, then that was merely another sacrifice you had to make. Yuri hadn’t been surprised to find out just how _depraved_ some of the boys in the Abbey could be. And it was so much easier to take advantage of the weak when you were hidden behind closed doors.

It was more than simply frowned upon by the guards; the punishment for the act was just as heartless as the act itself, and no mercy was spared for the victim.

Exploitation aside, sharing a bunk was also one of the easiest and most effective ways of keeping warm during the night—one of the few reasons Yuri had been so irritated to have lost Aleksandr—and it offered a small shred of comfort in their otherwise miserable world. Unfortunately the guards were unable to recognise the difference.

Even though Yuri was on his side with his back to the younger boy, he could still sense that Piotr was lying completely rigid, seemingly unable to relax despite Yuri's reassurance.

"Are you still awake?" Piotr's quiet voice echoed in the silence of the room, and Yuri felt him move around until he could feel the boy's breath ghosting across the back of his neck.

Yuri nodded. "I don't sleep much."

"Oh," Piotr murmured. Yuri half expected him to ask why, already preparing a lie that he had only needed minimal rest for as long as he could remember. In truth he rarely slept as he had far too much on his mind, in fact he craved a good night's sleep—would have done anything for it—if only his mind would allow him a moment of peace. Silence fell again, and Yuri closed his eyes in a vain attempt to shut away his thoughts and trick himself into drifting off. It didn't work.

Piotr cleared his throat softly behind him. "Can we talk?"

With a weary sigh, Yuri rolled over so that he could see Piotr's hopeful face. The fear had lessened but it was still clearly visible. "What about?"

"Anything. Where are you from?" Words blurted from the boy's mouth, far too eager to strike up a conversation.

Yuri figured it couldn't do much harm, if anything, talking to Piotr might actually help pass the time. "Saint Petersburg. You?"

"Smolensk," Piotr replied, not able to hide the hint of longing in his tone. In all honesty, Yuri had no idea where Smolensk was, whether it was a town or a city or something in between, but he nodded his understanding regardless.

He ended up talking with Piotr until the boy finally succumbed to exhaustion, envious that Piotr had been resisting the urge to yawn for well over an hour and yet Yuri couldn't even remember what it felt like to sleep.

He'd learnt that the boy came from a very poor family, his parents barely able to afford to keep him in school let alone feed and clothe him. Yuri wasn't surprised that they had fallen for the intricately woven lies that had lured many other desperate mothers and fathers into giving their children over to Biovolt. The company promised a future and a purpose for children who deserved a better start in life, yet the sheer reality of it was nothing like that promise.

Piotr had taken up an interest in blading as a hobby when he was eight years old and his parents did all they could to encourage his enthusiasm; Yuri imagined they all but leapt at the chance to push their son into Valkov's open arms. He'd been at the Abbey for six years, proving Yuri's estimate of his age to be almost perfect, though it had turned out that he wasn't overly skilled. It explained why Yuri had never actually heard of or seen the boy, but left Yuri confused; wasn't it the first rule that if you didn't meet the standard you were no longer welcome in the Abbey? Either Piotr was just scraping through his training, or Valkov had developed a soft spot.

Yuri almost laughed at the idea.

After a lot of persuasion on Yuri's part, Piotr had quietly admitted that his lack of progression had been dragging his training group down, holding the other boys back. His actual roommate had taken out his frustration on Piotr himself, though thankfully Sergei had removed him from the situation before it got worse. Yuri felt his lip curl in disgust at Sergei's actions; you didn't learn anything from being protected by others.

If it had been Yuri, he would have let Piotr take his beating, the memory of it would then motivate him to try harder, to push himself further. By taking the boy out of harm's way, Sergei had effectively told Piotr that it was alright to fail, though he would have no chance of surviving the Abbey with that belief.

Piotr had asked to see Wolborg, eyes widening in awe when Yuri removed her from his jacket and tentatively pressed her into Piotr's hand. In a rare show of generosity, and perhaps a little curious, Yuri had called on Wolborg's power, watching as Piotr marvelled the shimmering ice that danced over his palm. The beyblade he'd been given himself was nothing special; standard issue with no colour or markings, apparently primed equally for endurance and defence. Piotr said that he wasn't even sure himself what his blading style was.

Yuri lay awake for what felt like hours after Piotr eventually fell asleep, curled up against Yuri's side for warmth. He sighed heavily, staring up at the slats under his own mattress. Piotr was unusual. Yuri had seen enough new recruits to the Abbey to know that the only thing on their minds within the first few months of joining was that they needed to be stronger, be faster, be _better_ than those around them. He'd been no different himself. It didn’t take long to develop the familiar 'do or die' mentality, a sign that survival instinct had kicked in. The younger and weaker boys trained in set groups, similar skill levels brought together to fight it out between themselves, the winners moving up in rank and the losers never being seen again.

It wasn't until you had picked your way through the lower levels, ruthlessly destroying your opponents without mercy or care for their wellbeing—after all, they were merely another stepping stone towards your ultimate goal—that you stood a chance of being selected by Valkov for the intense, personalised training programme the Abbey offered. Yuri could still remember the day Valkov had smugly applauded him in one of the larger training halls, the last boy standing after a gruelling day-long session that had pitted every boy in his group against each other in a free-for-all battle. Even now, eight years later, he still felt oddly sickened by the strange sense of _pride_ he'd felt in that moment, knowing that he was the victor and that all the other boys he had spent the past year with were inferior to him. Especially since one of those boys had been Boris.

He wasn't sure if it was wrong of him, but Yuri couldn't help but feel sympathy for the boy that had attacked Piotr, able to understand all too well the frustration he must have felt. To be so desperate to move upwards, to prove himself, to survive… Yuri wasn't surprised that he had wanted to remove the one obstacle holding him back.

As he closed his eyes, the warmth at his side—not Boris, but still somewhat comforting—finally luring him towards a much welcomed sleep, a faintly familiar face flickered in Yuri's mind. The reason he could sympathise with the boy that had tried to attack Piotr because he had done the same, the only difference was that he had been able to get away with it because he had the promise of protection, something the other boy had lacked.

A part of Yuri still regretted his actions, so many years later. Not because he felt guilty—getting revenge in such a way happened so often that the guards turned a blind-eye towards it—but because Sergei, his ‘protection’, had never quite looked at him the same way since.


	9. Chapter 9

Three weeks after Yuri's confession, Boris was still avoiding him like he had the plague. The boy had thrown himself back into training with barely a moment to rest, and if ever Yuri tried to sit with him on the rare occasion their short meal breaks coincided, Boris' instant reaction was to stand up and leave, whether he'd finished eating or not.

Yuri sighed, watching Boris walk away from him yet again. He let his head fall into his upturned palm and closed his eyes, so _tired_ it was almost unbelievable. A week ago, Valkov had returned from Saint Petersburg filled with rage, and had taken it out on the first boy whose performance results he'd looked over—namely Yuri himself—and for Boris' sake Yuri had no choice but to work himself to exhaustion.

A selfish part of him wanted to tell Boris precisely what he was putting himself through, just to make his friend feel guilty.

Someone jabbed him sharply in the back of his head and he jerked forwards, glaring in response to Vasily's lazy grin as the boy took the seat beside him.

"Here, got something to cheer you up," Vasily whispered, sliding his tray onto the table and eyeing up Yuri's half empty bowl. "I know how much you love the taste of this muck."

Yuri watched with disdain as Vasily swapped his own bowl, full to the brim, with the remains of Yuri's supper. He'd struggled to get half way through his own, so what the older boy expected him to do with the food in front of him was a complete mystery. At least until Vasily's eyes very deliberately darted to the bottom of the bowl and he actually understood what the boy was doing.

They ate in silence, or Vasily did at least as he finished off Yuri's leftovers, Yuri just picked around in the watery soup with his slice of bread, itching to get back to his room and read Kai's response. When Vasily had finished, he made an act of collecting Yuri's tray for him, tilting it upwards for just long enough to cover Yuri from prying eyes as he slid the folded envelope into his coat.

After a gruelling evening sprint in the gymnasium with wires and cables feeding data from his body onto a computer, Yuri ducked out of the queue to the showers and all but ran back to the relative safety of his room, collapsing under his window and tearing into the envelope like a starving man to food.

Just as he had sorted the blank sheets from Kai's actual letter—two this time—and scribbled out his name again to write Kai’s, the shadow of boots appeared through the crack under his door. With little thought, Yuri rammed the letter and the envelope down the back of his trousers as he jumped to his feet.

Boris peered around the door, hadn’t bothered to knock first, and eyed him up where he stood. "What’re you doing?"

Yuri took a second to consider himself, no doubt he looked suspicious and in desperate need of a wash. Annoyance curled in his gut when he remembered that Boris had been ignoring him for weeks, and he couldn't help but bite back at his friend.

"I thought we weren't talking?" he asked, narrowing his eyes and making his way to the door, planting one foot heavily against the wood to stop Boris pushing it open any further. As much as he desperately wanted to speak to Boris, to shout at him for ignoring him, to have the comfort his mere presence had always offered, the need to read Kai's reply overrode everything else in his mind.

Boris sighed deeply, and Yuri very nearly relented. "About that…" He trailed off, catching Yuri's eye and trying to convey his apology without having to verbalise it.

Yuri played stupid and pretended not to pick up on the message. He quirked an eyebrow at the boy in the doorway and waited impatiently for him to continue.

Awkwardly, Boris shifted in the small space and tried to move the door open a little further with his elbow. He frowned when it didn't budge. "What the hell, Yura… why won't you let me in?"

"Why should I?" Yuri snarled. If Boris wasn't so squashed he was sure the boy would have staggered back in shock. _Nobody_ spoke back to Boris Kuznetsov, not even Yuri. The only person Yuri had ever known to get away with it was Sergei, and that was probably only because he was twice their size.

Boris spluttered, torn between anger and confusion. He tried to speak but his words mangled together and came out as an agonised groan. Instead he settled for sagging helplessly between the door and the frame as if the wood alone were holding him upright.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked quietly, staring down at the door handle that was obviously digging uncomfortably in his hip, unable to alleviate the pressure unless Yuri moved his foot first.

Yuri gave an over dramatised sigh, even by his standards, a lie sliding easily from his tongue. "I'm tired. I need to sleep, that's all. Can't you come back tomorrow?"

Boris looked straight into his eyes and considered the request carefully, rolling it over in his mind for a long moment before he eventually gave in with a curt nod and tried to back out of the doorway with limited success. When he finally stumbled free, cheeks flushed lightly from embarrassment, Yuri might have laughed at how ridiculous his friend looked were he not so caught up in his thoughts about Kai and the letter.

Just as Yuri thought he was about to leave, Boris stuck his head back into the room. "Can I just—what's that?"

Yuri noticed then that he'd made a big mistake; turning his back _before_ Boris had shut the door. He felt the letter being torn away from his waistband and whirled around to snatch it back. Boris' eyes widened so much they nearly bulged from their sockets as he realised what he was holding.

Boris swore so loudly that even the boy in the room opposite Yuri's stuck his head out into the corridor. Yuri cursed and yanked Boris into his room by the collar, slamming the door shut behind him. Before he'd even clocked of the fact that Boris had actually _dropped_ the letter and wasn't reading it, Yuri slammed his fist into his unsuspecting friend's jaw and sent him tumbling to the ground with a grunt.

Yuri grabbed at the splayed paper and crumpled it into his pockets as adrenaline surged through his veins, expecting Boris to stand up at any moment and retaliate for the unprovoked attack. He did nothing. Yuri paced his tiny room, forcefully breathing though his nose and wringing his hands to get himself back under control. Boris did nothing. He rinsed his hands in the freezing water from the basin and rubbed them over his face. Still, infuriatingly, Boris did absolutely nothing.

He hit him a second time, a raw shout tearing from his throat as he backhanded Boris across his temple with a fist that he wished wasn't his own. Boris' head jerked to the side with the impact, but he didn't otherwise react. When Yuri yanked his coat from its hook on the corner of the bunk and flung it at Boris he heard the heavy metal buckles whip across the back of his skull, but Boris merely reached up and gently pulled the coat away from his face, frowning at the material pooled in his lap.

He just sat rigid and took Yuri's abuse, almost as though he deserved it.

" _Do something_!" Yuri yelled, far too close to Boris' face, as if every single ounce of fury he had ever felt had just come gushing from his mouth in one frantic, unrestrained burst.

His hatred towards Biovolt's entire existence, towards Valkov's crippling regime and the fact that the man had dared to use his friend as a means to blackmail him, towards every technician and medical assistant that had ever dared to say he wasn't pushing himself far enough, towards _himself_ for even thinking he could wrangle a way out of the Abbey for all of them—all directed at Boris as if everything going wrong in Yuri’s life was his fault.

But Boris, his closest friend ever since he'd run into him that cold day in Saint Petersburg's market, where Boris had offered up an half of the food he’d scavenged so that Yuri didn’t starve. The boy who had agreed to join Valkov despite his reservations just so that Yuri wouldn't be alone, who had stayed awake for him at night when he was afraid, who had taken punishments for him when Yuri couldn't stand any more yet cared for him afterwards despite his own wounds, who had suffered with him through each and every moment of the hell they lived in and still refused to leave his side.

That boy just _sat_ there.

It suddenly stuck Yuri that he'd never once hit Boris out of anger before. A tense silence settled between them, only broken by Yuri's heavy, gasping breaths as he stared down at the unmoving figure on the ground.

"Maybe—" Yuri paused to swallow, his voice sounded thick with an emotion he didn't want to put a name to. "Maybe you should just go." He didn't mean it, he didn't _want_ Boris to leave, but he couldn't stand the thought of hurting him again.

"Yeah." One word and a simple nod, nothing more, and Boris was on his feet and walking away.

Yuri didn't move, could scarcely dare to _breathe_ , for he had seen such an extreme sadness in Boris' eyes that he thought his heart might explode from the intensity of it. The small click of the door easing shut rang loudly in his ears. What was _wrong_ with him? Was it not enough that Boris was unknowingly taking Yuri's punishments every time he missed a target? Did he have to hurt him directly as well?

"Yura, listen." Boris' voice was muffled by the door between them, but it still sounded drained, exhausted, and Yuri closed his eyes. "I get that you don't wanna tell me what's going on, or maybe you _can't_ , and that's fine…"

He waited a long, uncomfortable moment, would have believed that Boris had just walked away and left it at that were it not for the shadow still lingering under his door. He heard the boy heave a heavy sigh and something thudded against the wood. His next words carried a silent plea that burned in Yuri's mind.

"I just want you to know you can still trust me."

He’d trusted Boris since the first day they’d met, but Yuri realised—so suddenly that it drew a shuddering breath from his lungs—that now he sincerely wished he didn’t.

At least then he wouldn’t be risking Boris’ life every time he set foot in a training room.


	10. Chapter 10

Kai's letter was a complicated request. He'd already set things in motion but, in order to actually bring Biovolt down, he needed more information and there was little he could get from outside the Abbey gates.

Yuri had been confused at first, had to re-read the letter more than once before it fully sank in just what Kai was asking from him. He needed _evidence_ ; cold, hard proof that the Abbey wasn't just a children's home that encouraged their passion for beyblading as the rest of the outside world seemed to believe. The first thing that had jumped into Yuri's head had been about their punishments, for surely the level of physical abuse they endured wasn't typical of an orphanage. If he could just get a record of exactly what their discipline involved, Kai may be able to use that as evidence against Valkov at least.

Ideas had been running through Yuri's mind all night, keeping him awake despite his exhaustion, but he was still no closer to coming up with a solution or a plan to get Kai what he needed.

He'd spent his morning and the majority of the afternoon in the gymnasium under the watchful but woefully untrained eye of one of the junior assistants, and guessed he had run a good few miles over what his programme dictated as the assistant had been unable to properly work the computers that recorded his data.

Yuri didn't mind too much, barely focusing on the blundering man as his attention had been drawn to the other side of the hall where Sergei was lifting weights. He'd always been in awe of the other boy's strength; the wall of muscle that made up his chest could probably put a man ten years older than him to shame. Sergei had caught his eye once or twice, and Yuri had nearly tripped off his treadmill at the shock of being caught staring.

Vasily had wondered into the hall a few hours after Sergei had started, settling himself on a rowing machine and rolling gently from side to side, and they had been involved in a quiet conversation until Yuri had finally been permitted to leave for lunch. Yuri had been too far away to hear their words, but he'd seen the deep-set concern on Sergei's face clearly enough. Whatever they were talking about, Sergei hadn't liked it. The pair had left by the time Yuri returned to resume his session in the afternoon.

Yuri's mind wondered back to Vasily again when he left the gymnasium. He didn't know too much about him, other than that he was around Sergei's age, if not a little older, and that they had both joined the Abbey at about the same time. Vasily had been on the roster for the main team alongside Sergei three years ago, but had never actually played; according to Vasily, the technicians had made some serious miscalculations when designing and creating his beyblade that had left him unable to compete in that year's tournament. Yuri had always thought there had been more to the story than the boy had let on as Valkov would never have allowed the design team to get away with failing to meet deadlines. By the time Yuri joined the team the following year, Vasily had been removed from the list.

It seemed, to Yuri at least, that Vasily was heavily involved in what was quietly referred to as the illicit smuggling circle in the Abbey. A team of boys who worked to get messages and things Yuri could only guess at through the Abbey's security, both into and out of the building. Yuri had even heard that Vasily was involved somehow in a number of escape attempts, and though it had only been rumour, couldn't help but feel there was some truth to it. Vasily seemed to know a lot about the Abbey and about Biovolt, more than he _should_ have known, and he didn't come across as the sort of person to ignore someone asking for help.

Which was why, in the early evening when Yuri was finished with his meal, he set out to find the boy in the hope that he would be able to shed some light on Kai's request. Yuri hadn't the faintest idea where Valkov might keep the evidence Kai needed, but he knew the man most likely kept a record of everything that went on in the Abbey and assumed it was locked up somewhere safe. He just needed to find out _where_.

Vasily wasn’t anywhere to be seen; Yuri had checked the training centre, engineering, spoken to a flustered doctor on his way into the medical wards, even tried the food hall again just in case Vasily had been scheduled for a late supper, but nothing.

He was traipsing his way back to his room, prepared for another long night lost in thought, when his eyes fell on the door to the room Vasily and Sergei shared. With a renewed burst of hope, because even if Vasily wasn’t there, Sergei would know where to find him, Yuri sprinted down the corridor and almost burst in without knocking.

Sergei came to the door sporting a black eye and a sour expression, forcing Yuri to back off a step.

“What happened?” Yuri asked, failing miserably to tear his gaze from the swollen bruise. He couldn’t remember the last time Sergei had been punished for anything.

The older boy sighed, leaning heavily against the wall, an action that brought a frown to Yuri’s face. “I had a disagreement with someone,” he said dismissively, “what do you want?”

Yuri thought about asking more, but there was something dangerous lurking in Sergei’s voice that warned him off. “Have you seen Vasya?” The second the words were out of his mouth he regretted them, as Sergei’s mood suddenly shifted towards anger.

“Outside. Don’t bother me again, Yura.” He slammed the door in Yuri’s face before he’d finished talking and Yuri stared dumbly at it for a long moment. He recalled the conversation he’d watched in the gymnasium—had the ‘someone’ been Vasily?

Shaking his head to clear the thought from his mind, because it really wasn’t any of his business and Sergei wouldn’t appreciate him getting involved, Yuri grabbed his coat from his room and took the stairs two at a time.

A wide paved area ran around the Abbey, illuminated by bright spotlights that left nothing in shadow. The skeletons of ancient trees stood out on the distance, torn apart by winter, but other than that there was nowhere a person could take cover—the most difficult thing to contend with when trying to make an escape attempt and the one thing that had thwarted each and every one of Boris’ plans to get out.

An endless snow drifted down from the sky, catching in Yuri’s hair and on his eyelashes, and for a second Yuri simply stood by the main doors and breathed. He’d always liked the snow; the cold tickle on his skin, the crunch under his boots, the way it covered the ground in a blanket of white, burying the unpleasantness making everything seem soft and pure.

His father had hated it.

He felt himself being watched as he crossed under the guard tower at the corner of the building and could have sworn he heard the click of a rifle loading over the wind. Being outside the Abbey made him nervous, even though he had no real reason to be as he wasn’t anywhere near the iron fence, and he couldn’t help but walk a little faster just to get out of sight.

He found Vasily near the outdoor beydishes, the area they sometimes used for practice in the summer months when the air conditioning units in the training centre couldn’t cope with the heat. He was coaching a young boy—too young, in Yuri's opinion—how to properly load and fire his launcher without losing control of his beyblade. Yuri stood back and watched, couldn't help but feel touched by Vasily's desire to help, something that only sparked new questions in his mind.

It was impossible to deny that Vasily was a good blader, both in terms of his practical skill and his vast knowledge of the sport. He had been good enough to make the main team, and yet after whatever had occurred three years ago, Valkov didn't seem to bother with him any longer. That was strange in itself, since as far as Yuri was aware, if you were no longer of any use to Valkov, you were shown to the door. But Vasily was still very much a part of the Abbey, and will still allowed the freedom to move around and use the facilities just as much as anyone else.

Yuri found it difficult to understand from Vasily's point of view as well. If what he thought were true, and Vasily was no longer being trained, then there was nothing preventing him from walking out through the gates to freedom. Instead, Vasily had chosen to stay—but _why_?

Yuri wondered whether the boy felt a sense of loyalty to those he had helped smuggle things through the Abbey's walls, whether he felt obliged to stay for as long as he possibly could in order to continue his work behind the scenes. If that was the case then Yuri respected him for it; loyalty was a rare quality to find in anyone. The concept of 'survival of the fittest' ruled over everyone, and you were always more likely to survive if you were willing to step on other people to keep yourself out of the firing line.

He realised suddenly that Vasily was staring straight into his eyes, or more that Yuri had been staring straight at the other boy for longer than he'd intended, and an easy smile settled on Vasily's lips as he made his way to Yuri's side.

"He's got potential," Vasily murmured, nodding his head back to the boy now practising his launch alone. "He'll make the team one day, I'm sure of it."

Yuri merely nodded, wondering whether it was right that the only ambition they had to strive for was to make it onto the main team. It was difficult to get on the roster, only the top four out of a hundred, if not more, ever made. But it was even more difficult to stay on the team once you were there, and you had a very long way to fall should you make a mistake—both Boris and himself had learnt that.

"Were you waiting for me?" The question drew Yuri back from his thoughts and reminded him of the reason he was stood outside in the cold.

"I wanted to ask you something," Yuri said quietly, a frown forming on his face. He'd decided that Vasily was probably the best person to speak to, but hadn't spared much thought for what he actually wanted to say.

Vasily shrugged, tucking his hands in his pockets and waiting patiently for Yuri to speak, prompting him when he didn't offer up anything straight away. "Go ahead."

Yuri glanced around the area, Vasily and the younger boy weren't the only ones practising in the snow. "Not here—somewhere quiet."

Vasily nodded in understanding, apparently he'd been working behind the scenes for long enough now to pick up on Yuri's subtle hint.

Yuri followed him back up to the third floor, hesitating when Vasily stopped by his room. He certainly didn't want to talk about his ideas in front of Sergei, especially not when he was in a foul mood, as he would no doubt demand that Yuri stop trying to help Kai as he would only end up getting hurt for his efforts. He was probably right. Thankfully, Vasily noticed his apprehension without him having to voice it and reassured him that Sergei would be elsewhere, opening the door and encouraging Yuri inside.

Their room was only slightly bigger than Yuri's, though they did have the disadvantage of having to share the space. Aleksandr, Yuri’s previous roommate, had disappeared not long before the championship matches started; he'd heard that Valkov had forced him to challenge Takao, but wasn't sure what had happened to him after. Sergei's jacket was flung on the bottom bunk and Vasily hooked it over the ladder instead, perching on the edge of the mattress and patting the space next to him for Yuri to sit.

"I…" Yuri had absolutely no idea what to say. He knew what he _wanted_ to ask, but had no idea how to actually ask it. It wasn't every day that you planned to go behind Valkov's back and dig through the man's private files, after all.

"Is this about Kai?" Vasily asked easily, as if he were just asking how Yuri felt about the weather. The boy made it all seem so simple.

Yuri nodded. "I need to send him some… information." He didn't want to go into detail, Kai had warned him against it, and as much as he respected Vasily he wasn't entirely convinced he could _trust_ him. The boy was involved in a lot of people's business, and all it would take was one careless slip of his tongue to the wrong person and Yuri's plans could unravel right before his eyes.

Vasily pursed his lips and scratched at his chin in thought. "This 'information'—I'm guessing it's not just something _anyone_ can get hold of?"

"No." It most certainly wasn't. If he thought the details Kai needed could be easily obtained the next time he was near a computer station, he wouldn't have sought Vasily out in the first place. "I don't suppose you know where our personal files are kept?"

"Personal files…" Vasily trailed off, shooting Yuri a perplexed look before he abruptly barked with laughter. Yuri immediately felt offended, unsure what Vasily found so amusing—surely Valkov kept records of their training _somewhere_? The boy brought himself back under control a moment later, wiping at his eyes with his palms before apologising. "It's just that, well, that sort of thing is kept in Valkov's office. You've got no chance of getting in there—you know what he's like with security, he's got guards on every corner and at the top of them all is Levitsky. That man watches the corridor like a hawk."

Yuri knew Vasily was right, he wouldn't be able to get past Levitsky without a very good reason, and he knew even if he had the opportunity to go in and speak to Valkov, if he made up some lie about his training, the man was hardly going to let him be whilst he poked around for something useful. He _certainly_ wasn't going to let him walk out with anything.

Dejected, Yuri sighed. He'd need to think of something else then. Perhaps if he could get his training record from one of the technicians, Kai could put that forward to prove just how overworked they were, that beyblading wasn't just a passion to Biovolt, but a stepping stone to something bigger. It wouldn't be as good as being able to prove that Valkov was a cruel and violent man who wasn't beyond beating children who didn't even understand their mistakes, but it might still be enough.

He thanked the boy sitting next to him and stood up, about to leave for his own room to rethink his options when Vasily hummed thoughtfully behind him and caught his attention again. Yuri paused, watching the boy move to the window to glance out at the courtyard.

"Levitsky doesn’t work the night shift anymore," Vasily murmured, keeping his back to the door, "one piece of advice, Yura, don't try and do it alone."

Yuri managed a curt nod and had to force his legs to move.

Sergei was only a few feet from the door when Yuri left, seemingly stunned by the fact that Yuri had been in his room. Yuri gave him the briefest greeting, mind already working overtime as he processed Vasily's words. The boy had implied that it might actually be possible to get in to Valkov's office, but he would need help from someone. The first thing he needed to do was find someone insane enough to try.

Yuri could feel Sergei staring at him from the other end of the corridor when he got to his own room, and he looked back to catch his friend's eye. Sergei glanced away just as Yuri made contact and disappeared through his door.

He didn't want to believe it, but Yuri couldn't quite shake the niggling feeling that Sergei had been listening outside his room the entire time.


	11. Chapter 11

The assistant who usually oversaw Yuri's fortnightly medical appointments wasn't available, or so he'd been told, and apparently nobody was free to replace him. As a result, Yuri had been gifted with an hour long period of respite that morning, half of which he'd wasted staring down at his breakfast.

His mind was awash with so many things; meaningless numbers and jumbled performance targets, his angry outburst at Boris a few days ago that he still hadn’t apologised for, Valkov's insistence that he wasn't training hard enough despite the fact that he'd increased in nearly all of his measurable statistics and was physically and mentally incapable of doing more, the constant risk of failure and the threat to Boris' life, the prospect of finding his personal file, Kai's letter—always Kai's letter—and everything had coalesced in his head in such a garbled way that he was literally sitting at the table thinking about absolutely nothing.

He needed to sleep. Preferably for a very, _very_ long time.

Yuri jumped when a presence appeared at his side, completely oblivious to the boy's approaching footsteps, and couldn't quite fathom why Boris had chosen to sit next to him rather than opposite. Even Boris looked just as perplexed as he felt, repeatedly glancing over his shoulder to check the rest of the hall.

Boris cleared his throat, opened his mouth to speak, but apparently thought better of it. The bruises Yuri had left him with were fading well and Yuri was thankful, for he'd hated having to look at them. The apology that had lingered on the tip of Yuri’s tongue ever since that evening threatened to spill out, until it once once again overruled by the selfish anger that still simmered in his chest. Boris had no idea how much Yuri was giving up for him, yet Yuri couldn’t breathe a word about it.

There were fresh cuts and scrapes on Boris' hands, spread out in an all-to-familiar pattern, and Yuri wondered why the boy had taken to training without wearing his gloves—the metal shrapnel that flew from the dish when a beyblade shattered was extremely sharp.

His eyes were caught by a long tear in Boris' sleeve, patched up with sloppy stitching. Boris' own handiwork, he assumed, Valkov hadn't employed a tailor. He got the distinct feeling that below the tear lay a painful gash in Boris' skin, but didn't have the desire or the energy to ask and find out how or why it was there. He would only be told to forget about it anyway.

Boris ate in silence, leaving the space between them clear for Yuri to talk if he wanted to. Yuri wasn't entirely sure whether what he felt was gratitude for Boris' support, or annoyance that the boy was treating him like he was fragile. Or a ticking bomb seemed more apt; Boris didn't look completely comfortable sat with him, and Yuri feared Boris was waiting cautiously, preparing to leap away from him the next time he lashed out. Time fled quicker than he wanted, and just as Boris scraped the last forkful of his breakfast from his plate, the intercom system barked his name.

Without thinking, Yuri slammed his hand down on top of Boris’ just as he stood up, more forceful than intended, and he didn't miss the way Boris winced. "I have to do this alone," he said quietly, only a partial lie, hoping to have said so much more but he just couldn’t find the right words. He needed help, yes, but Boris wasn't the person who could help him.

Boris' hand twisted beneath his own, until his fist was gripped tightly in Boris' calloused palm. "I know." There was a hint of regret that the boy had been unable to cover completely. He leaned down until his forehead brushed against Yuri's hair. "Just promise you won’t do anything stupid. If you got caught, I don’t”—he swallowed nervously—”it's not worth it, Yura. _None_ of us are worth it."

Yuri only managed a small nod. Boris’ unspoken plea hit him hard, but he couldn’t make a promise he knew it would be impossible to keep. Boris sighed, realised that his words had fallen on deaf ears, and walked away. The pressure on Yuri’s shoulders felt so much heavier and he wondered how long it would be before he started to fall apart at the seams. He was showing weakness, and Valkov didn't appreciate weakness.

He took his tray to the hatch at the back of the hall, his plate looking exactly as it had done when he had picked it up, and ignored the fact that he was going to arrive at the training centre ten minutes early. As he hooked Wolborg from his pocket, he hoped Valkov might be pleased with his eagerness, though he sincerely doubted it.

Ivan walked in just as he was leaving the hall, flanked by a tall, wiry boy Yuri didn't recognise. "Look sharp, captain," Ivan called as he passed, giving Yuri that contagious grin of his.

Yuri responded by lifting his arm and mimicking shooting Ivan between the eyes with his launcher. The boy laughed, mock saluted, and invited him back to the West wing if he wasn't busy that evening. A smile ghosted across Yuri's lips.

It wasn't until over an hour into training, when he was smashing his way through substandard issue blades like he were launching Wolborg through thin air, that he was hit by a thought as solid and unforgiving as a concrete wall. The resulting overload of enlightenment that sparked fireworks in his mind led him to accidentally call up Wolborg and unwittingly destroy the automated launcher he faced and half of the brickwork behind.

Needless to say, he spent the entire afternoon powering though torturous circuits in the gymnasium under Valkov's own beady, condescending gaze just to make up for it. But he didn't care much, barely noticed the sweat pouring down his face or the burn in every muscle fibre in his body, could hardly hear Valkov's menacing threats or feel the man's hot breath on his cheek when he loomed over him, because Ivan still viewed him as the captain, still respected him, and that was something he could easily use to his advantage.

Yuri wasn't expecting to see Sergei standing in the middle of the corridor when he returned to his room, and was utterly stunned when the taller boy lurched forward and slammed him back against his door. He gagged at the hand tangled in his collar, Sergei's fist raised and blind panic stole his breath away. Yuri flinched as the fist pounded against the wood just shy of his head and the door shook from the impact.

"Tell me why Valkov has asked me to watch you," Sergei demanded. Yuri shrank under the anger and betrayal that scowled down at him. He _must_ have overheard the conversation Yuri had with Vasily, there was no other reason for Sergei to get so irate. Valkov asked them to spy on each other all the time and report directly back to him—Yuri had done so nearly a dozen times—so Sergei was surely no stranger to such a request.

Perhaps he just wanted to hear it in Yuri's own words.

Taking a gulp of air and setting his jaw, Yuri stared right into Sergei's eyes and offered up nothing but intense determination. Seconds passed, minutes flew by, and a cold gust ricocheted through the corridor. He wouldn't say a single thing— _couldn't_ say a single thing—Sergei would only try to talk him out of it.

Finally Sergei backed off, and Yuri discretely gasped a breath, wanting to scratch at the pressure he still felt on his neck. Sergei didn't spare him a second glance as he walked back down the corridor.

Just as Yuri managed to regain enough control of himself to rest his hand on the door handle, Sergei's words stopped him short, seconds away from opening it.

"Whatever you're doing, Yuri, Valkov's starting to suspect you. And don't think I haven't noticed the effect it's having on Boris either." Yuri didn't turn around, not even the slightest bit surprised that Sergei had noticed Boris' unwarranted punishments; Sergei knew precisely how the Abbey worked. He could feel Sergei's hard gaze on the back of his head and swallowed thickly. "Don't forget there are some people I _can't_ protect you from."

Yuri collapsed on his bunk without bothering to change, pulling his knees up to his chest and burying himself under his sheets.

* * *

He was standing in the night, surrounded by nothing but dark, misty sky and fresh snow for as far as he could see. It wasn't cold; in fact, Yuri could barely feel a breeze at all. Curious, he gave an experimental huff, watching as his breath fogged and took a while to fade. Picking a direction on instinct, Yuri began to walk. Snow crunched under his bare feet, and he glanced down to see that he was dressed in his sleepwear.

He could have been walking for hours or only a few minutes, it was difficult to tell with only the darkness above him and the brilliant white snow below. Either way, all Yuri had been able to discover was that the scenery around him stretched out forever, nothing had changed no matter where he tried to walk.

Confusion settled in his mind, and he came to the conclusion that he must have been dreaming, despite it being nothing like any other dream he had experienced before.

A weight settled around his waist and something heavy dropped into his pocket. Without thinking, Yuri plucked it out, staring at Wolborg in his palm and realising he was now wearing his tournament uniform. His blade seemed to glow an eerie blue. He closed his eyes and tried to make sense of what was going on; for a dream, it all felt surprisingly _real_.

When he opened his eyes, Wolborg was spinning before him, creating a slight whirlwind that had gathered the nearby snow. His launcher and ripcord were clutched tightly in his hands, but he couldn't recall even setting his blade in the lock, let alone firing her.

He was momentarily blinded as light shot upwards from the bit-chip, forcing him to shield his face with his arm. The ice wolf herself was standing before him, powerful and majestic, and almost lmost immediately he felt warmed by her familiar, comforting presence.

Her aura shimmered, fading slightly and he was sure that if he squinted, he could make out a figure standing just beyond her. A gentle, female voice filtered through his mind; soothing, but he couldn't understand her words. The figure shifted, moving a little closer, until he could recognise the outline of a woman. Something was telling him the voice he could hear belonged to her, but he couldn't see her lips moving.

He wondered if he should have felt cautious, fearful even—he had no idea who this woman was, after all—but he couldn't quite find it in himself to feel anything other than peaceful.

The closer she came, the more he wondered whether he _did_ know who she was. But that was impossible, unless…

A faint knocking echoed around him and Yuri frowned, distracted, glancing out at the vast expense of snow but seeing nothing. The knocking persisted despite Yuri's efforts to block it out, only becoming louder and more insistent until he could no longer ignore it. The image of Wolborg and the strange woman burst and vanished, snapping him out of his obscure dream with a sharp gasp. He realised slowly that the knocking had been coming from outside his room.

Stumbling down the ladder with his sheets still tangled around him, Yuri yanked the door open and was nearly bowled down by the boy that rushed in, tripping over Yuri's feet and sprawling on the floor.

"Piotr?" Yuri asked, not bothering to hide his shock. He hadn't seen nor heard from the boy since he had spent the night on the bottom bunk weeks ago, and certainly wasn't expecting to see him again.

He barely had a second to shut his door before Piotr flung himself forwards, wrapping his arms around Yuri's shoulders and collapsing against him. Yuri forcefully shoved him off, disgust rising in his throat, and Piotr stumbled back, eyes filled with apologies and tears.

Yuri blinked, disbelief pulling at his face. Was this boy—this weak, stammering, _whining_ little boy—honestly a member of the Abbey? A thought crossed his mind; he must have still been dreaming. Surely Piotr wasn't really in his room, sobbing on his floor. Surely Sergei hadn't stepped in to help this… this _baby_?

"I'm sorry, I'm… Yuri— _thank you_. I couldn't think where else to go." Trembling words trailed off into sniffles.

Yuri could think of a few places.

He pushed his frustration to the back of his mind and forced himself to think logically. Piotr was clearly upset, afraid; the last time he had sought solace in Yuri's room had been when his training partner had attacked him, and the blackened swelling over his cheek that Yuri could see even in the darkness hinted that he had returned for the same reason.

He signalled to the bottom bunk, watching as Piotr staggered over and slumped on the edge only to bury his face in his hands again and cry. An irritated huff escaped Yuri's lips; he wasn't in a position to look after the boy now, had his own worries to deal with. He wanted to find out who the woman in his dream had been, though he had a fair idea. And the information Kai needed wasn't going to send itself, was it?

"What happened?" he asked eventually, figuring that Piotr stood no chance of going to sleep if he couldn't stop crying.

Piotr glanced up, caught Yuri in a long, sorrowful gaze, before he launched into a garbled account of what had occurred in the last hour. Yuri had difficulty deciphering his words, asking the boy to repeat them over and over, gradually becoming more and more impatient with his hiccoughing and sniffing as he tried to speak. From what he was able to gather, his swollen cheek was thanks to the same boy that had attacked him previously; the one who saw Piotr only as an obstacle on his way to success.

Yuri felt torn between kicking Piotr out of his room—Yuri wasn't there to comfort him—and a desire to do what he could to help. It wouldn't be right of him to step in, not in the Abbey, Piotr needed to learn how to fix his own problems and look after himself. He was only a few years younger than Yuri after all, should have long since grown out of cowering behind someone stronger. Yuri knew he'd been correct in his assumption; Sergei's actions had given Piotr the belief that failure was acceptable, when in reality, nothing was further from the truth.

"I just wish he would disappear, Yuri, I really do!" Piotr's last words came across as more of a desperate, high-pitched squeal than anything else, though he didn't seem to notice the way Yuri winced at the noise.

Sighing and rubbing a hand over his face and through his hair, Yuri relented. "What's his name?" he asked carefully, forcing his voice and expression blank lest he accidentally give Piotr the wrong idea. He was only curious, so far hadn't actually planned to do much once he found out.

Piotr met his eyes with a glimmer of hope, wiping the tears from his face with his cuff. "Anton Vitaliev. He's in 312 in the West Wing and—"

"Stop talking," Yuri spat, harsher than intended, but he had to stop the boy before he revealed anymore. Yuri couldn't help but feel that Piotr had just signed his roommate's death wish.

Yuri turned to look though his window, catching sight of his pale reflection, his brow furrowed in thought. Anton Vitaliev… he'd heard the name, couldn't put a face to it, but knew that the boy was nothing more than an arrogant teenager; far too ambitious, far too prideful. The sort of boy who believed he was born on top of the world and deserved to be honoured as such. The sort of boy that annoyed everyone and didn't often tend to last long. Nobody would think anything of it if he vanished.

Piotr paused where he was washing his tears away at the basin, and fixed Yuri with an optimistic, encouraging, _knowing_ glance that made him look years older than he was. He swallowed, seemingly hesitant to ask a question, and Yuri braced himself for what he knew was coming next. "What do you want me to do?"

Because in the Abbey, _everything_ had a price.

Yuri was somewhat stunned that Piotr had the courage to ask and wondered whether had a been a little harsh in thinking the boy was pathetic. In the back of his mind, the memory of the last time Piotr had stayed flickered to life again; his reluctance to share a bunk with Yuri and the potential reason behind his fear.

Even though the thought sickened him, Yuri couldn't help but wonder just how far the boy was willing to go, how far he could push him. "Let me think about it."

Piotr nodded silently, drying his face and hands on his shirt and hovering awkwardly in the middle of the room. Yuri realised he was waiting for permission to move, no different to how Aleksandr had been at first, and he merely flicked his hand in the direction of the bottom bunk before climbing back onto his own mattress.

He lay awake for hours as usual, unable to return to the dream he'd had about Wolborg and instead hanging over the edge of his bed and watching Piotr grimace in his sleep. Nightmares, no doubt, something they were all familiar with. He sighed, pressing his forehead against the cool metal rail. He could do something about Anton easily enough, boys disappeared all the time and nobody ever bothered to investigate why. He wouldn't get his own hands dirty, of course not, Yuri knew exactly who to talk to and could 'accidentally' let the boy's name slip from his tongue.

Calm, casual and indifferent; nobody would suspect a thing. He’d done it before, after all.

The question was whether he _wanted_ to do it. Whether he really wanted to remove the boy from Piotr's way. It wouldn't make sense; arrogant or not, Anton was clearly the stronger of the two and the weak always faded eventually. Yuri didn't hold out much hope of Piotr lasting much longer, even if he did manage to get rid of Anton.

Just as he caught the first glimpse of sunlight through his window—frustrated that he had gone another night without sleep—Yuri came to a decision. Boys like Anton were the ones who aimed for the main team, focused all their effort on getting there, and wouldn't stop until they sat above everyone else. Yuri wasn't overly concerned; assuming Anton was about the same age as Piotr he had probably missed his chance at taking the captain's role in the next World Championship. Valkov would have his sights set on someone younger, most likely, someone he could still control and mould precisely as he saw fit.

But even though Yuri knew that with almost complete certainty, just as he knew it was only a matter of time before his own name was scratched from the team roster, the thought of someone challenging his position still irritated him. He knew it was selfish, but he hadn't managed to climb so high in the Abbey by lying down and letting others walk over him.

And if he had gained _anything_ useful from his training regime, it could only be his refusal to back down from a challenge.


	12. Chapter 12

The West wing seemed further away than before. The twisting corridors, winding stairwells and the creeping damp that was starting to seep through into Yuri's skin did nothing to ease his growing apprehension. If Valkov suspected him already, then his chances of being able to get what Kai needed were shrinking with every second. And he hadn't even started yet.

Aside from the small diversion he'd taken to _that_ room on the floor above his, the one every boy feared to visit and rightly so—he had yet to decide exactly what Piotr owed him for his trouble—he'd spent the past few days absorbed by his thoughts, analysing and over-analysing until everything had clicked neatly into place. All he needed now was an opportunity, and Ivan was the perfect distraction.

Somehow he'd become disorientated, forgot where he was walking, realising only when he opened a door that he thought led to the room Ivan worked in and found himself staring at old, dusty science equipment. His eyes roamed over a medical bed and outdated scanners, trays of test tubes, dulled scalpels and hypodermic needles filled with pale liquid that made Yuri's veins twitch under his skin. Breath caught in his throat and he had to forcefully block out the memories of the last time he had become some unstable doctor's medical experiment.

"You lost?" A voice called out behind him, and Yuri twirled around in the doorway to face Ivan’s sceptical expression.

Yuri spared a final bitter glance at the storage room and backed out, pulling the door shut behind him. "Just having a look around."

"Well you don't wanna look in _there_." Ivan shuddered but got over it quickly. "Here—take this." He nodded down at a stack of papers balanced precariously on the large box he was holding, and as Yuri leaned forwards to take the papers the boy shoved the entire box into his unsuspecting hands.

The box was heavy and pulled on Yuri's shoulders, leaving him wondering how Ivan had managed to get down the stairs with it in the first place. Metal clanked against metal as he walked, silently following Ivan, though Yuri didn't see what was inside until Ivan instructed him to drop it onto a table. He stole a quick look around the room—small, two long tables and a wall of shelving units—until Ivan kicked a footstool over and stood up on it so that he could take the paper, finally giving Yuri the opportunity to glance into the box.

It was full of broken blade parts, some in a better condition than others, and Yuri could only guess at what Ivan intended to do with them as the parts were clearly beyond repair. "Where’d you get all this from?"

"Training centre. I clean up after bladers like you destroy everything." Ivan was already at another table, spreading out the papers and unfolding them, clicking his tongue and rearranging until he was satisfied. Curious, Yuri crossed the room and stared over Ivan's shoulder.

Notes and sketches dotted the pages, all annotating technical diagrams of Boris' beyblade. Ivan jerked his thumb over at the box. "That lot's from Boris earlier today. Something's wrong though. They've put together a whole new base for Falborg; gives higher speed, but it's thrown his accuracy completely out. Said I'd have a look at it." He shrugged, as if volunteering to work out the kinks in Valkov's latest design ideas was something he did all the time.

"I'm surprised they actually consider letting you help," Yuri said, not meaning to sound as condescending as he had done.

Ivan took no offence and just smirked, catching Yuri's attention with the mischievous glint in his eye. "Oh, it gets better."

The boy pulled a dented laptop from a metal trolley under the table and set it up on top of the drawings, flipping the lid and whistling to himself as the monitor flickered to life. He skipped through half a dozen security screens with ease, fingers flying over the keyboard, and Yuri would fully admit he was thoroughly stunned when Ivan made a few quick clicks to bring Boris' file up on screen.

"Are you allowed into that?" Yuri's voice came out as more of an indignant squawk, leaning just that little bit closer to see just how much information Ivan was able to access. Nearly everything, it seemed—Boris' personal details, medical notes, weekly schedule, performance results—everything that related to his training, but not _quite_ everything Kai needed.

"Sure am. You _jealous_ , captain?" Ivan snickered, his words clearly intended as a jab at how little Yuri was trusted in comparison, but Yuri couldn't tear his eyes away from the vast amount of data on the screen. And if Ivan could access Boris' file with so little effort… Yuri wanted to know what _else_ the boy could do.

Yuri pulled back, took a breath, and smiled like the devil. "No, I'm not jealous. But it's certainly _interesting_."

The boy stared at him for a second longer than necessary, something sly and calculating swirling in his eyes before he turned back to his laptop, giving Yuri the impression that in some respects, he and Ivan were not all that different.

Ivan talked as he worked, something Yuri guessed he did in order to concentrate, and he explained his theories as Yuri moved back and forth between Ivan and the box to fetch broken parts he requested. Yuri realised he could save himself a lot of trouble and eventually dumped the box at Ivan's feet, much to the boy's amusement. He watched from Ivan's shoulder as the laptop replayed snippets of recent video footage from Boris' training, clicking into slow-motion as Falborg clumsily clawed his way through blade after blade.

Ivan huffed irritably, scratched his nose, scribbling notes onto the corner of one of the pages with his left hand and constantly rewinding with his right. "I don't get it," he started, shifting closer to the screen and squinting at the video, clicking back and forth between the recording and Boris' statistics. "If I didn't know better, I'd say it was _Boris_ who wasn't controlling Falborg properly. Nothing to do with the blade at all."

"I'm not surprised," Yuri said, eyes glued to the glimpses of Boris' rigid form. He didn't realise he'd actually said the words aloud until he spotted the confused look on the boy's face. "Just look at him, he seems far too subdued. He's driven by anger, something he's clearly lacking in that session."

"You're saying Falborg's power is driven by _anger_?" Ivan considered his words, cocking his head to the side. "Makes sense, I guess."

Yuri's face scrunched up as he tried to reword his theory. "Boris just doesn't seem to be focused on anything there, almost as if he's—"

"Bored?" Ivan offered instantly, shrugging at Yuri's lack of response. The word Yuri would’ve gone for was ‘distracted’, but Ivan didn’t need to know that. "Don't blame him, those launchers get really annoying really quick. There’s no challenge to it, not like facing a real person. Would battle him myself if I didn't think I'd get punched in the face just for asking."

Yuri allowed himself to chuckle, that sounded more like the Boris he knew, not the slightly blurry figure on the screen. Ivan pulled up a series of statistics for Boris' beyblade and started to fiddle with the numbers, scrolling up and down to see how his increases and decreases affected everything. Yuri watched with careful interest, not only could Ivan _view_ the files, but he could _edit_ them as well, potentially filling in a missing segment in his plans.

"Can you change anything else?" he asked, forcing only his curiosity to lace his voice. "Training results, for example?"

The slyness returned for just a split second before it vanished again from Ivan's face. "Depends. Why?"

Yuri heaved a sigh, propping his elbow on the table and resting his head on his hand. "Valkov isn't impressed with my results," he began, spinning lies as easily as if he'd been born doing it. "If my previous results were to somehow, say, mysteriously drop… he'll think I've made a bigger improvement in my next session."

A manic grin spread across Ivan's lips, showing teeth. "You're a real sneaky bastard deep down, aren't you?"

Yuri smirked and quirked an eyebrow, playing along for the moment until he had seen Ivan at work.

"Well." Ivan banged out Yuri's name on the keyboard and his file bounced onto the screen a second later. "How good do you wanna be?"

"It can’t be too obvious." Yuri decided, remembering Sergei's earlier warning. "Just enough to get him off my back."

Ivan nodded slowly and frowned at his laptop for a long, tense moment. He logged out of the entire system and shut the computer down, and Yuri watched, confused, as the boy dug around in the bottom of a battered filing cabinet. He returned with a long cable and a small rectangular device, both of which he slotted into his laptop, plugging the other end of the cable into an outlet on the wall.

When he logged back in, it took him twice as long and he almost had fight his way through the security. The screen that followed flickered in and out of focus, and Yuri spotted a tiny loading bar crawling along the bottom of the screen.

"What’re you doing?" he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

"I'm not _technically_ allowed to change things like results," Ivan said, very much stating the obvious. He pointed at the device he'd plugged in, a light flashed at the end of it. "If they notice someone's fixed them, _that_ means they won't know it was me. Having said that, half the staff in this place don’t even know their ass from their elbow anyway so they probably won’t notice a thing."

A whizz with engineering and a technical genius to boot, apparently, Yuri wished he had bothered to search Ivan out years ago. Between them they agreed just how far to drop Yuri's results by for his last three sessions—he knew his own capabilities better than Ivan did after all—and once the boy had confirmed and saved his amendments, overwriting the previous copy on the Abbey's computer system, Yuri decided to up his game. Find out just how far he could convince the boy to go.

"Ivan— _Vanya_ ," Yuri murmured, bracing both hands on the edge of the table. "What would you say if I told you there was a chance I could get us all out of here?"

Ivan's gaze immediately shot across to him and the triumph of managing to change Yuri's file faded from his face. He seemed torn between confusion and laughter, probably thinking it was just a joke. "You kidding?" he asked, poorly concealed disbelief swirling in his eyes. He smirked when he saw no hint of humour in Yuri's cautious expression. "You mean out for good, right?"

Yuri nodded once. "For good."

Ivan snorted, shook his head and laughed. "I'd say you were insane for trying."

Yuri rolled his eyes, suddenly irritated by Ivan's childish demeanour. "I'm being completely serious."

"Should hope so. Dangerous thing to say unless you mean it."

A fleeting glimmer in Yuri's mind warned him that Sergei might not have been the only boy who'd been instructed to keep an eye on him. Ivan's words could easily have held a disguised threat, there was always the possibility that he would run off to Valkov and relay Yuri's reckless comment. Then again, Ivan played seemed to play the manipulation game just as much as he did himself.

"I have an idea, but I need your help." He wouldn't reveal the fact that Kai was the driving force behind his plan, the boy didn't need to know. "I can't tell you in detail—"

"Good. The less I know the better," Ivan said, slamming down the lid of his laptop and turning around in his chair. "When do I start?"

Yuri stared between the manic look on Ivan's face to his extended hand and back again, wondering whether the boy had been dropped on his head as a baby. Surely Ivan understood the risks even without knowing the details, so for him to be so willing and excited to help was unexpected.

Still, Yuri shook the boy's hand—he wasn't stupid enough to turn him down.


	13. Chapter 13

They had been planning for a little under a week, long nights spent hidden away, plotting and scheming down to the last minute detail. Ivan had butchered his own training results until they barely resembled anything close to the truth, and between them they had repeated their lines over and over until Yuri could hear Ivan's voice echoing in his ears even when he was alone.

Constantly shielding their discussion from prying ears, always watching over their shoulders—not easy when you considered that Ivan shared a small room with three others he didn’t seem to trust—they wouldn't get a second chance, so they had to be perfect.

But even though they had practised and practised until they had almost gone insane, Yuri still felt the nerves creeping in as Levitsky silently escorted them through the Abbey to Valkov's office.

"Hey, captain," Ivan whispered, shifting the paper in his arms as they waited alone in the corridor for permission to enter. "I'm not risking everything on this. If it gets bad, I'm out."

"Fine. Just don’t mess up.” Yuri couldn't help but be a little irritated by Ivan's new terms. He'd expected the boy to have a little more backbone, but then he remembered that at least Ivan could have some resemblance of a future at the Abbey as a designer or an engineer; he had something to lose. Yuri, on the other hand, had nothing. Once he'd outlived his usefulness, it was over.

Valkov had his back to them as they were ushered into the room, standing on the other side of the desk with his hands clasped behind him. Yuri noticed that he looked a lot more tense than usual, and wondered whether he had been in discussion with the Director yet again. A tiny part of him wanted to forget his entire plan, to turn around and retreat because that was easier, safer, but he squashed the thought in his mind. They only had one chance.

“This had better be important, Ivanov.” Valkov’s brutal voice grated on Yuri’s ears, setting him on edge before he’d even managed to say a word.

“Yes sir.” Yuri paused, swallowed, and forced himself to sound confident—but not arrogant—even though he hardly felt it. “As captain of the main team, I’ve been keeping an eye on Ivan’s performance and have noticed that he’s been falling short of the standards recently. I’d like to suggest changes to his training programme.” There, he’d said it, and he hadn’t faltered once.

A suffocating silence descended in the room, broken only by the whisper of Levitsky’s boots across the carpet as he took a single, intimidating step closer. Valkov refused to even acknowledge he’d said anything and Yuri felt himself growing more nervous by the second. Ivan acted his part well, almost so well that Yuri started to believe it, keeping his head bowed and looking every bit the pitiful little failure he was supposed to be playing. Yuri knew that he was discretely glancing around the office, looking for anything and everything that might be of some use to them.

Eventually, when Yuri had nearly choked from his own built up anxiety, Valkov turned around to stare straight into him.

“Your title is just that, Ivanov. You are in no position to make such a suggestion.” The man was mocking him, Yuri could see that clearly, and he took a deep breath to calm himself down.

“Yes sir,” he murmured, keeping his eyes trained on the floor, knowing better than to look Valkov in the eye. “But, if you just looked at his results…”

On cue, Ivan made his way forward, intent on handing over the stack of printed results he was carrying, but the way he tripped suddenly and all but threw himself onto the desk wasn’t part of the script. Yuri thought he had honestly fallen over his own feet until Ivan started to deliberately fumble with the paperwork that had spilled from his hands.

Valkov barked Ivan’s name and the boy shot upright, standing extremely rigid, head down and his hands at his sides. Paper floated to the floor. “Sorry sir,” he murmured quietly.

“I did _not_ give you permission to speak.” Valkov ground out, swiping his desk clean of Ivan’s apparently offensive results. “Now leave, _both_ of you.”

Yuri frowned, this wasn’t going as planned. “But sir, I—”

Valkov crossed the office in barely a second, shocking Yuri when the man appeared in front of his face. He didn’t expect the backhand that caught him across the cheek and snapped his head to the side. “You will do as you are ordered, boy. You have been allowed freedom despite your pathetic conduct during the championship, but I will no longer accept your insolence. If you so much as _breathe_ when you have not been given explicit instruction to do so, you will be punished—your _friend_ will be punished. Am I understood?”

Freedom? He’d been allowed _freedom_? Ducking his head and staring hard at the carpet as a heavy gloved hand gripped his shoulder, Yuri gave a single nod. “Yes sir.”

“And you.” Valkov turned his cruel gaze to Ivan, still stood silently by the desk. “I will deal with your training programme later. You will start anew tomorrow, and I expect a considerable improvement on your performance within a week. Any less will not be accepted, is that clear?”

“Very clear, sir.” Ivan lifted his head just a fraction, enough to catch Yuri’s eye and signal that he’d got what they came for regardless of their initial plan failing, and Yuri had to bite his tongue as they were marched out of the office.

In the corridor, Yuri swallowed the lump that had settled in his throat and kicked at the wall, hard. Oh how he hated that man, _loathed_ him even. Ivan set off towards the stairwell, crooking his finger and inviting Yuri to follow, the maniac grin that Yuri had become accustomed to seeing was starting to curl his lips.

They ended up outside, apparently Ivan was far too excited to walk all the way to his room—though Yuri was anything but—words rushing from his lips until Yuri snapped at him to calm down and talk normally.

“I’ve got an idea,” Ivan whispered as they rounded a corner, glancing around until he was satisfied they were far enough away from the tower and the boys practising to avoid being overheard. “It’s a long-shot, but I _think_ I know a way to get rid of the guard outside his office.”

“I’m listening.”

“Well, the guards get slack after curfew because Levitsky’s not around to shout at them.” He caught Yuri’s curious glance and brushed him off. “Don’t ask how I know that, but they do. It means there’s gonna be less of them around if we go up late.”

Sneaking around the Abbey after curfew had never featured highly on Yuri’s to-do list, aside from skipping down one floor to Boris’ room, but he figured the boy at his side knew a lot more about the inner workings of the Abbey than he did. He nodded once to show his understanding and tried to shake off the twinge of anxiety simmering in his mind.

“I reckon if we time it right, we can get the guard away from his office without running into anyone else. Just gotta make something up—some emergency or whatever—something he can’t just ignore.” Ivan had taken to making wild, arcing gestures between them, something Yuri found immensely irritating and he fought the urge to reach out and smack the boy’s hands away. So much for not drawing attention.

“What were you thinking? As an excuse, I mean.”

Ivan scratched the back of his head and kicked at the ground as he thought. “It’s gotta be something bad. They never bother to break up fights after curfew, so that’s out. Gotta be something _serious_.”

“Something fatal?” Usually Yuri’s mind would already have kicked into overdrive, ideas twisting together until they produced something workable, but he felt sluggish and all he ended up with was an unwanted bout of nausea.

“Exactly.” Ivan nodded excitedly, his lecherous grin working it’s way onto his face. “If we trick him into thinking there’s someone _dying_ , say, in the food hall, he’ll have no choice but to go and check it out.”

Yuri frowned, Valkov wasn’t stupid, and neither were the guards he employed. “And if he doesn’t? You know just as well as I do that Valkov isn’t going to cry over one dead boy. We’ll have to make it worse than that.” He briefly considered the thought of asking for one of the younger boys to help them, to pretend to be the boy dying in the hall, but it involved too much trust, a risk they couldn’t afford to take. Whatever they were able to offer as payment for their assistant to keep his mouth shut could easily be outmatched by someone just as eager to get him to talk.

“Worse?” Ivan repeated slowly, pursing his lips in thought as he stared up at the sky. A beat passed, and he suddenly slammed his fist into his palm. “I’ve got it! We say he was trying to escape! The guards _always_ jump when someone tries to escape.”

“That could work…” The nausea broke out again, churning in his stomach, and Yuri tried to force it away, blaming it on the memories Ivan’s words brought up. The watchtower loomed in the distance.

“I trick the guard, you break in. Easy.” The boy’s casual shrug did nothing to ease Yuri’s anxiety. He really ought to reconsider the meaning of ‘easy’; breaking into Valkov’s office would be anything _but_. Ivan splayed his hands in front of him before they suddenly dropped to his sides again. “Though you’ll have to find a way of moving the camera first.”

“The camera?”

“There’s one outside the door, didn’t you notice?” As if he had time to think about it whilst his nerves were going haywire in the corridor. No, he hadn’t seen the camera, but he really should have known there would be one. “Don’t worry, I think you’re tall enough to reach it.”

“One thing, Vanya.” Yuri paused, swallowing the vile taste that had started to creep up his throat and discreetly pressing his hand against his stomach. Ivan seemed too caught up in his apparently genius idea to notice anything was amiss, and he preferred to keep it that way. “What’re you planning to do once you get to the hall? The guards aren’t stupid, he’ll know you tricked him.”

“I’ll manage.” Ivan abruptly stopped talking, slipped his launcher from his back and crouched down on the ground. Yuri watched him quickly take it apart, didn’t understand what he was doing until a gruff looking man in an abbot’s robe—the ones Valkov used to disguise the Abbey as a religious institute—appeared from behind his back and he almost jumped.

He ducked his head to avoid the man’s questioning gaze, instinctively catching a part Ivan threw up at him and pretending to look over it. He had no idea what he was holding, but a moment later the man gave a curt nod and moved on. Ivan breathed a sigh of relief.

“We should probably stand somewhere else,” Ivan murmured quietly, clipping his launcher back together with practised ease. Yuri was happy enough staying where they were as the sickness had only been getting worse, but he followed after Ivan regardless, knew they couldn’t risk another close-call.

They stopped by a portion of stone wall that jutted out from the main section of the Abbey and Yuri leaned heavily in the corner. He caught the concern in Ivan’s eyes but forced himself to ignore it, distracting the boy with more questions. Ivan seemed to have their plan all worked out already, and Yuri found he couldn’t quite focus well enough to suggest anything more himself. “What did you see in the office? Anything we could use?”

“Well, there was paper all over his desk—until he knocked it off, of course.”

Yuri shook his head slowly; Valkov was obsessed with details and security. They wouldn’t find anything useful on his desk, that was for sure. “He wouldn’t keep anything important in plain sight.”

“No you’re right… In the drawers then; I saw keys on his desk as well. They’ve gotta fit one of the drawers.” Ivan gave a half-hearted shrug, one eyebrow raised in question as he waited for a response.

“Then that’s where I’ll look.” Yuri closed his eyes, resting his head back against the wall as another wave of nausea sent tremors through his body and blurred his sight. His heart was pounding so hard in his chest he was surprised Ivan couldn’t hear it. What was wrong with him? He’d never been ill before, the doctors made sure it would be virtually impossible.

“What’re you gonna do with what you find?” Ivan glanced over again, tucking his hands into his pockets. Yuri cracked open his eyes to watch him shift from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable. The concern on his face was noticeable, even if he did seem reluctant to act on it. “I mean, it’ll look pretty obvious if you start walking round the Abbey with a load of paper.”

“I’ll manage.” It was all Yuri could say before his vision suddenly slanted diagonally and his knees buckled, wind streaming past his ears as he collapsed. He could see the ground rushing up, barely had a chance to shove his hands forward, but he never felt the impact.

Darkness surrounded him, followed by an intense chill that seeped through his skin. The nausea was still there, mingling with a burning, suffocating sense of fear. He forced himself to take a deep breath but the air never seemed to reach his lungs, clogging in his throat. He coughed harshly, trying to draw in oxygen at the same time and gagging, Dread tightened around his chest.

He hit something face-first, jerking his body to life again. He reached out and met something cold and wet, slowly registering that he was holding a handful of snow.

“Captain?” The voice calling his name was muffled, seemed far away, as if someone had covered his ears and was shouting at him from the other side of the Abbey. “ _Yura_?” Ivan. It was definitely Ivan. The boy’s hands ran over his back and pulled his hair back from his face.

He drew a spluttering breath, flexed his tingling fingers briefly before raising himself up onto his elbows, arms trembling and slightly numb. His voice cracked as he tried to speak. “What… What happened?”

Panic gripped Ivan’s voice as he fussed over Yuri, kneeling in front of him and pressing his palm against Yuri’s forehead. “How should I know? You just fell over and started shaking. Like you had a seizure or something.”

A seizure? No, that couldn’t be right. He’d felt sick, that was all. “How long was I out for?”

“Few minutes, maybe. I almost went and got someone.” The hand withdrew back to Ivan’s lap, and Yuri missed it’s warmth. The boy’s next words reignited the twist of irritation in Yuri’s mind; Ivan should have known better than to admit his fear so openly, after all. “You scared me a bit.”

“I’m touched.” Yuri ignored Ivan’s outstretched arm and instead pushed himself upright to lean back against the wall again. If Ivan had noticed the annoyance in his tone then he was choosing to ignore it.

“We should go back in. Curfew’s soon.”

His vision swam as he stood, legs threatening to cave again. Yuri let himself slump back against the wall and slide to the ground, momentarily not caring about his display of weakness. His voice came out as nothing more than a quiet whisper. “I think I’ll stay here for a minute.”

The concern in Ivan’s eyes came back full-force, half-crouching again to get a good look at Yuri’s face. “You sure? Want me to go get Bor—”

“ _No_.” The last thing he wanted was for anyone else to see him looking vulnerable. Ivan was bad enough, Boris would be unbearable. “I’ll be fine. You should go.”

“Maybe you should get a medical—”

“I’ll be _fine_ , Vanya.” Anything to get Ivan away from him. He hadn’t quite managed to sound as reassuring as he’d wanted to.

Ivan hesitated for a long moment, apparently torn between saving his own back to avoid being trapped outside after curfew, and his worry for Yuri’s wellbeing. If there was one thing Yuri couldn’t stand, it was someone else’s pity. A dark scowl settled on his face and solved Ivan’s dilemma for him; concerned or not, Ivan wasn’t foolish enough to stand around where he wasn’t wanted. “Well, if you say so…”

Yuri let his eyes fall closed with exhaustion as Ivan turned his back, but he could still distinctly feel the boy’s eyes on him as his footsteps faded away.

When he opened his eyes again, he was slouched under the window in his room. His first thought was that he was dreaming, that he’d fallen asleep outside in the snow. But that didn’t seem right; he didn’t feel cold for a start, and the room looked as real as ever.

Boris was sprawled out on the bottom bunk, his face buried in the pillow and the sheets kicked down to his feet. Sighing, Yuri pushed himself up and crept to his friend, absently registering that the nausea and dizziness that had been plaguing him earlier had all but vanished, before laying the discarded sheets over the sleeping boy. Boris would undoubtedly kick them off again, but at least he couldn’t accuse Yuri of not trying.

A soft cough from above his head made Yuri jump, jerking back in alarm as an arm was flung over the metal railing. Someone was in his bed, and it clearly wasn’t Boris. For a split second he wondered whether it was himself lying there, whether he was having some surreal, out-of-body experience and watching himself sleep. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

Raising himself on his toes, Yuri stole a glance at the figure on the top bunk, frowning when he caught a glimpse of dirty blonde hair and a face he instantly recognised. Danil, Boris’ roommate.

Which surely meant he was in _Boris_ _’_ room, not his own. But how? _Why_?

Yuri perched on the very edge of Boris’ mattress and cast his mind back, recalling leaving Valkov’s office, standing outside in the snow with Ivan and discussing their plan. He’d collapsed, which was bizarre in itself, and Ivan had reluctantly left him leaning against the wall whilst he gathered the energy to move.

And then nothing. Just a complete blank between then and now. It was almost as if whatever had happened in the final match against Takao had come back to haunt him.

How could he have managed to get from sitting outside—utterly worn out, breathless—to being in Boris’ room on the second floor? Unless it had been the same as the finals, unless his body had somehow moved of it’s own accord and carried him through the Abbey without him even knowing.

A glimmer of fear settled in his mind as he considered the very real possibility that he’d been walking around without any idea he was doing so. It was dark outside, much darker than when Ivan had left him, so it was clear that a considerable amount of time had passed. Just what else had he done? Had anyone seen him? _Spoken_ to him? And if they had… What if he’d revealed his plan? His connection with Kai? Hell, what if—

“Yura?” Boris’ whisper yanked him from his despairing tirade and he glanced over his shoulder to see the boy resting on his elbows, blinking at him wearily. “Didn’t hear you come in…”

Of course not, Boris could sleep through anything if he was tired enough. The thought brought the tiniest of smiles to Yuri’s lips and made it just that bit easier to lie. “I only just got here.”

Boris nodded slowly, covering a yawn with the back of his hand before curling back under his sheets. He didn’t say anything for a long while and Yuri thought he had fallen asleep until he spoke up again. “You just gonna sit there?”

Yuri shook his head, moving from the bunk to hang his coat over Boris’ own. His trousers were practically dry despite the fact that he’d been lying on the ground outside, again begging the question of how long he’d blacked out for. He unhooked his belt, placing it quietly on the floor, careful not to wake Danil as the last thing he needed was to deal with the boy’s wide-eyed stares. Danil had made it perfectly obvious from the moment he had moved in to Boris’ room that he feared Yuri almost as much as he feared Boris’ himself.

The very second he lay down on the mattress, Boris draped the sheets over him and latched his arm across Yuri’s waist, pinning him back against his chest. Yuri blinked down at Boris’ arm, tracing the myriad of thin scars with his eyes as he tried to take in just how close the boy was holding him. Boris had grasped his hand before, yes, pulled him close when Yuri needed comfort, but this… This was far too familiar, far too intimate. Promising something Yuri couldn’t accept and silently asking for something he wasn’t prepared to give. It didn’t make any sense.

“Relax, you’re shaking,” Boris murmured quietly, as if he had read Yuri’s mind. Yuri had to force down a shiver as warm breath tickled the back of his neck.

He held out his hand before him and, sure enough, it was trembling. How could he not have noticed? He clenched his hand twice, skin paling over his knuckles, though it did nothing to ease the tremors. Boris reached up and took Yuri’s hand in his own before tightening his grip around Yuri’s waist again.

But he wasn’t nervous. He wasn’t even particularly anxious anymore—Boris’ strong, calming presence working its magic once again—yet he couldn’t stop himself from shaking.

He felt unsure, restless, as if there was just something not quite right with him. Something he couldn’t quite grasp, no matter how much he wanted to.


	14. Chapter 14

Yuri jumped as someone ploughed into his back, throwing out his arms to steady himself and knocking his bowl halfway across the table. He was still barely awake, not that he'd been able to sleep for long the night before as he still hadn’t worked out why he’d collapsed a few days ago, and he struggled to take in Ivan's mischievous, excited grin as it seemed so out of place.

"Morning captain!" Ivan perched cross-legged at his side, so close he may as well have been sat in Yuri's lap. He’d caught the attention of the boys at the table next to theirs, and probably everyone else around them. Yuri shot a half-hearted glare across the hall that didn’t quite achieve the fearful response he was hoping for, but the boys got the message regardless and moved seats.

Ivan lowered his voice to a minute whisper. "So I overheard one of the engineers talking about the Director—"

"Overheard?" Even though they were apparently content to let Ivan help, Yuri knew the Abbey’s staff would never be reckless enough to talk about anything important around him.

Ivan shrugged nonchalantly, a lazy smirk on his lips. "Okay, I followed him, same thing." If he had the energy to do so, Yuri would have laughed. "Anyway, what's important is that the Director's called Valkov back again. He's leaving today."

He instantly knew what the boy was thinking. Today? No, it was far too soon, Yuri wasn't ready. There was more he wanted to check, little gaps in their plan he wanted to fill in, loopholes and escape routes he wanted to cover just in case things turned sour. Ivan seemed to notice his apprehension, urgency flickering in his eyes before it was forced away.

"Come on, it's our best shot. We don't know if he'll go away again—what if it's not for months?" Hands gripped tightly onto Yuri's arm, tugging almost desperately at his sleeve. "You said yourself it's _vital_ you get in there."

Yuri sighed. Ivan was right; they had no idea when the chance to get into Valkov's office might come round again. He still felt exhausted, wasn't at his best and the last thing he needed was to collapse in the middle of searching for the files. Without knowing the cause—it seemed to be so much more than just lack of sleep—he had no sure way of preventing it from happening again. But he knew he could say that regardless of when they decided to go, whether it was today or not for another month. He was about to resign and give Ivan his approval when the boy beat him to it.

"Good. I'll meet you at curfew, you know where." He'd removed himself from Yuri's side and disappeared from the hall before Yuri even had a chance to agree.

Turning back to the abandoned breakfast he had no intention of finishing, Yuri folded his arms over the table again and stared out at the grounds. He calculated he had another ten minutes at least before his first session, long enough to repeat their plan in his mind for possibly the hundredth time; his schedule for the day was a gruelling mix of gym and circuits that would leave him little free time to think.

Ivan would draw the guard away with a well spun lie, leaving Yuri to break into the office. It made sense; he'd only let the boy know so much and hadn't really detailed what he needed to find, and Yuri was in no fit state to really be running around the Abbey with a guard on his heels. The only thing that could stop them at that point would be if that guard turned out to be Levitsky, but he’d been informed by both Ivan, and more importantly Vasily, that Levitsky no longer worked late.

Once he was in he'd have to be fast, neither of them in any doubt that the guard would pick up on Ivan's trick the second they neared the food hall, just had to grab what he needed and leave. A quick sprint to Ivan's workroom near the engineering block—Ivan reassured him the department emptied early—and he'd return to his own room just before dawn.

Easy. In theory, anyway.

But there was still one more thing to check—well, there were many, but if Ivan wanted to do this today then Yuri would have to put those aside—he glanced around to find the boy he had spotted on arrival and saw him making his way towards the queue at the other end of the hall.

Grabbing his own tray, Yuri swiftly caught up with him, ignoring the muffled protest of the boy he cut in front of. "Vasya."

"Yeah?" Vasily didn't bother to turn around to look at him, keeping his voice low.

Yuri pressed himself a little closer to the older boy's back, waiting for the worker behind the hatch to take Vasily's empty tray and move off before talking again. "If wanted something—"

"Tomorrow morning." The reply was sharp, irate, and this time Vasily glanced over his shoulder with stern eyes. "Don't talk to me about that here, Yura. Not again." He walked away without another word, leaving Yuri standing alone.

There was a quiet cough and Yuri looked down to see hands trying to tug the tray from his white-knuckle grip. He released it, ignoring the pitiful look he received, too concerned by Vasily's apparent anger. Something wasn't right; Vasily was rarely flustered by anything and up to now had seemed, if anything, a little _too_ eager to help Yuri communicate with Kai.

Whatever it was that was setting Vasily on edge, Yuri didn't have much time left to think on it as the intercom blasted his name through the hall a second later.

Late in the evening, Yuri found himself hovering at the end of the corridor that led to Valkov's office, unbelievably relieved to see that he didn’t recognise the man guarding the door. He watched Ivan shake and ruffle his clothes, smack his cheeks with the palms of his hands and almost force himself to hyperventilate. When he was satisfied with his dishevelled appearance, the boy shot him a grin before sprinting down the corridor.

Yuri hid, ducking into another doorway out of sight of the uniformed man stationed outside the office. Ivan skidded to a halt by the wall under the camera to avoid being caught and hammered out words, so strained and panic-stricken that even Yuri—who had heard Ivan repeat the same line a hundred times—struggled to understand what he was trying to say. He couldn't help but feel a little impressed.

The guard finally understood Ivan's lie; that there was a boy in the food hall who had collapsed and wasn't breathing, Ivan thought he had tried to escape but he must have got stuck in the snow because he was frozen cold—Yuri suddenly wondered why they had chosen to place their imaginary emergency in the food hall and not somewhere much further away—and Ivan ran the opposite direction to where Yuri hid, the guard hot on his heels.

Silence seeped into the corridor and Yuri unfolded himself from his hiding place, sliding along the wall and keeping well out of sight of the camera. He needed to move it somehow, the lens was directed straight at the door, but when Yuri stood underneath it and attempted to jump up and knock it off target, he came a good few inches short.

They'd clearly made a miscalculation; Ivan had assumed he'd be tall enough to reach and Yuri had stupidly believed him without checking. He kicked at the wall in frustration. If he couldn't shift the camera, then he couldn't get access to the office without being recognised, couldn't get the documents Kai needed. And if he couldn't get the documents… he jumped as Wolborg's usually subtle presence burst to life as a flash of colour in his mind, almost as if she were trying to tell him what to do.

Yuri unclipped his launcher and locked his blade into place without even thinking, only realising how foolish his idea was when he was aiming his blade upwards. He wanted to knock it askew, not _destroy_ it. Again, Wolborg flared, and a soft crackle echoed through the corridor as his blade slowly became coated in ice; a buffer to protect the camera unit from the sharp bite of his attack-ring. Yuri silently thanked his companion and she flickered in understanding.

He pulled on the ripcord with barely a fraction of the power he normally would—Wolborg almost launched herself—and his blade jumped the short distance to the camera, tapping it upwards so that it aimed at the corner where the wall met the ceiling, leaving the door unprotected. Yuri rushed in, crouching to collect Wolborg as he did so.

The room was almost dark, lit only by the sliver of moonlight from the window and the light spilling in from the corridor. Ivan had told him about the paperwork he'd noticed on Valkov's desk, but between them they had decided that the obsessive man was unlikely to keep anything of importance in plain sight. No, what they needed was more likely to be locked away, and Yuri cast his eye around the various filing cabinets and draws that lined the office. There was a small wooden tray on the desk that Ivan had said he'd seen a set of keys in and carefully searched under folders and letters until he came across them.

Yuri grabbed the keyring and immediately set about trying to get into each and every cabinet, hoping to find one that contained something useful to them, something damaging to Biovolt. He only had a limited amount of time before he knew the guard would return. There was no boy dying in the food hall, and there were only so many ways Ivan could lead the guard around the Abbey, only so many lies he could tell before the guard realised he'd been tricked.

Finally, after he'd fumbled clumsily with the keys more than once, Yuri managed to open one of the cabinets. It was full of thick files, bound in beige card, all organised by name. He searched, banging his way through the drawers until he found himself, yanking the file out and spilling the contents onto the floor. He was utterly shocked by what he'd found.

Everything that had ever happened to him over the last ten years was splayed before his eyes in plain black and white. Literally _everything_.

He wasn't sure whether to feel lucky or disgusted.

He picked through the file with shaking fingers, eyes quickly scanning printouts and scribbled notes, looking for anything that might be of use to Kai and forcing himself not to be affected by what he was reading. Valkov had even recorded the first time he set eyes on Yuri; a cold day in Saint Petersburg, watching two eager young boys dart across Palace Square. Valkov had described every aspect of him in the most minute detail, and it made Yuri feel physically sick to know that the man had been scrutinising him so intimately without his knowledge. Apparently Valkov had made his mind up about bringing him to the Abbey before Yuri had even known the place existed.

A thin sheet of paper slid from the file, and Yuri cautiously collected it from the floor. His birth certificate, something he had never seen before in his life, and it wasn't a copy either. It didn't make sense; he'd made the choice himself to join Biovolt, his mother had already left by that point and not once since making the decision to come to Moscow had Yuri ever seen his father. How Valkov had managed to get hold of his birth certificate, a document that as far as Yuri was concerned should still have been in his parent's possession, he wasn't sure.

The file held details on his medical history, every appointment he'd had with the Abbey's doctors, every second of his training recorded in intense detail, even down to the meals he'd eaten and the rest time he'd been allowed. Every punishment he'd ever endured and every resulting injury, now _that_ was something Kai could use. But it wasn't enough, Yuri wanted to find more. He'd been the favourite—able to get away with things the other boys would have been disciplined for—he needed to find someone with a worse record than his. A familiar face crossed his mind, and he delved back into the filing cabinet intent on finding a file he _knew_ would be there.

He wasn't surprised to see it was twice the size of his own. Yuri forced himself to take a deep breath before daring to pull back the band holding the papers together. He should have skipped straight to the records of Boris' punishments, something Kai would be able to use as proof that Biovolt cared nothing for the injuries they caused, but he just couldn't help himself, settling back on his heels as he skimmed page after page of the training Boris' refused to talk about.

Yuri had expected it to be bad, expected it to be harsh, but he certainly wasn't prepared for the cruelty the printed words and handwritten notes threw up at him. Boris had spent an entire year squashed under one particular Doctor's boot, subjected to the most horrendous onslaught that Yuri just couldn't even have imagined. He'd been forced through so much that Yuri had never heard about; beaten to cause pain and beaten again for expressing it, days and weeks locked in a pitch black room, isolated, hooked up to machines that Yuri didn't understand the purpose of, only to be beaten yet again, all to rip emotion from his mind.

Broken wrists, dislocated shoulder, fractured kneecap, countless sprains, a botched experiment that had left Boris blind in his left eye and a horrible, _detailed_ surgery to rectify it, a knife that cut far too deep far too often and heavy fists that rained upon already thick bruises, the damage was almost endless…

Yuri blinked at the words, stunned and barely able to take them in.

A wet drop hit the page he was staring down at and Yuri lifted his thumb to his cheek, shocked to find it was damp. The pages ran on, every injury Boris had sustained during only that one year, every assault that had caused the scars that littered his friend's skin. And suddenly—

Suddenly he didn't _want_ Kai to see this, he didn't— _couldn't_ —need to see the horrors Yuri had just read about. He wished he hadn't seen the file himself, felt so unbelievably guilty, remorse twisting inside him, suffocating. He'd been the one to convince Boris to join the Abbey with him, had pressurised him into it, all because he didn't want to be alone again. Until Yuri had come along, Boris had been happy living under market stalls with only himself to worry about.

The final entry for the year—a handwritten account from Valkov—crushed the air from Yuri's lungs so fast he nearly collapsed, one hand slamming against the floor to stop himself from falling whilst the other crumpled the paper. The reason Yuri had never seen this Doctor, the reason he had never even heard his name, was because he was dead.

Valkov had killed him to keep him silent.

Boris had _watched_ him do it.

And according to Valkov's own words, his friend didn't even bat an eyelid at the display.

The whole purpose of the training was to create a soldier who was completely and utterly devoid of anything except a singular desire to follow Valkov's orders without question; so when Valkov had told him to watch, Boris had done so. Valkov had been immensely pleased with the end result. Yuri wondered what had gone through his friend's mind. Whether _anything_ had gone through his mind.

No matter how wrong the reports were, Yuri knew deep down that Kai had to see them, he needed to know just how far Valkov's cruelty stretched, needed to know that Valkov had _killed_ another man for the sake of his own insane ambitions.

Yuri closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing his mind on Kai and Kai alone and forcing himself to block out everything he had just learnt because, right now, he didn't need to be distracted by the thoughts and emotions swirling under his skin.

He piled papers to his side; the way Valkov had eyed him up from the very beginning, the injuries he had sustained at the man's command, and the gruesome details of Boris' specialised training, everything else he slotted back into the files with trembling hands. He could stop his mind from thinking about it, but he couldn't stop the tremors wracking his body or the sickness that curled in his stomach.

Wolborg suddenly flared again in his mind, not for comfort but a warning, as seconds later Yuri heard heavy footsteps reverberating through the corridor. He froze, crouched on the ground halfway through returning Boris' file and swallowed the lump in his throat.

Valkov's office only had one exit.


	15. Chapter 15

He couldn't escape.

Instantly flooded with panic, Yuri twisted on the floor and glanced around the office, desperate for a place to hide. Ivan must have run out of lies, the guard must have given in and returned to his post.

Yuri didn't have the time to wonder whether Ivan was alright.

His eyes flew to the foot well under the desk—the wood panel at the front would hide him if the guard decided to look into the room—and Yuri berated himself for leaving the door open. The footsteps were moving closer, heavy boots pounding on the stone floor. He shoved the wad of paper in the front of his waistband and hastily tucked his shirt over it, kicking the draw back into the cabinet with a bang and diving for the desk.

The boots stopped in the corridor and Yuri swallowed thickly as the door creaked open further. He curled around his knees, pinning his body to the panel. Blood rushed in his ears and he bit down on his lip, forcing himself to take small, shallow, _silent_ breaths.

Footsteps moved onto the carpet, and in the harsh light coming from the corridor a shadow crept under the desk. Something sparked in the corner of his eye and Yuri glanced back over at the cabinet where a small square of paper lay discarded on the floor. The keys were still hanging from the lock.

Yuri could have cursed.

The guard moved over to collect the paper, and Yuri prayed that he couldn't hear his frantic heartbeat for Yuri certainly couldn't hear anything else. He saw a gloved hand reach down, heard him mumble something as he eyed up the paper and Yuri hoped it wasn't anything important, hoped it was blank, hoped it definitely wasn't something that had his name on because he was _certain_ he recognised Levitsky’s voice.

If whatever he’d just found was supposed to be locked up, it would be a complete giveaway that someone had been rooting through the files.

Yuri wanted to move, his legs were starting to cramp and the desk was digging uncomfortably into his shoulder blades. Levitsky straightened and walked the short distance to the desk, standing no more than a few inches from where Yuri hid—he would only have to glance down—and Yuri held his breath as he heard the paper join the others above his head.

Panic exploded into hysteria in his mind and he suddenly forgot how to breathe at all, closing his eyes and trying— _failing_ —to block out everything because if he gave himself away now, that was it. Everything he had planned with Ivan, everything he had agreed to do for Kai was ruined. Their chances of getting out were over.

Yuri had so much riding on this. They _all_ did.

Just as the pressure in his head had reached boiling point, Yuri watched Levitsky’s boots step back and round the other side of the desk. _Breathe_. He still had to get out, and he'd have no way of doing so without being spotted if the man took up watch outside the door.

He wondered whether he would survive the fall from the window; the office was four floors up but perhaps the snow would soften his landing. A broken leg would be worth it. Hell, at this point, even if he risked breaking his own neck it would be worth it. Though if he did, the evidence Kai needed would still be with him, whoever found his body would most certainly find the papers and Kai would never catch sight of them.

But what other option did he have? Wait under the desk until _Valkov_ returned and found him cowering there? He struggled over which was worse; jumping to his death or suffering Valkov's wrath when he realised Yuri had betrayed him. When he discovered that Yuri had been planning for months to destroy him.

Valkov would inform the Director, and Kai's future would fall to pieces just as quickly as Valkov was sure to shatter every bone in Yuri's body, and Boris… Yuri dreaded to think of the fate that would befall his friend. Nobody would ever be any the wiser as to what really happened at the Abbey.

A sudden noise burst through the suffocating silence in Yuri's mind, it took a few seconds for him to recognise it as the shouting of young voices. Sprinting feet joined their shouts, ringing through the corridor and the office and shaking Yuri's entire body. Levitsky swore above him, the feet stormed passed the door, and Levitsky charged after them at speed.

Yuri wasn't completely sure what happened.

"Captain?" A familiar whisper echoed in the office, the room felt as if it had shrunk to just the tiny space under the desk where Yuri was tightly wound around himself. "We gotta go— _now_!"

The intense urgency in Ivan's usually jovial voice snapped him from his panicked daze almost instantly, and a pained hiss escaped his lips as he carefully, oh so carefully, lifted his head to peer over the top of the desk. His body rebelled against the movement and sent white hot sparks shooting through his cramped muscles, but there was a chance it was a trap to call him out and he had to be sure.

Ivan hovered by the door, blood stained his lip and chin—no doubt thanks to the guard—but he was otherwise unscathed. He was fidgeting, glancing up and down the corridor and back into the office, nervously wringing his hands. He caught Yuri's eyes and immediately left, crooking his finger for Yuri to follow.

Yuri stood, threw himself in front of the filing cabinet and jerked the keys from the lock. He dropped the ring into the little tray on the desk and glanced frantically at the paperwork spread over the top, desperately trying to work out what may have fallen out of the files. The last thing he needed was to leave evidence that someone had been there, and Valkov was so obsessed with detail that Yuri _knew_ he would notice if a single piece of paper was out of place.

He spotted his name in amongst the mess, grabbed it and shoved it up his sleeve, having little time to do anything else as Ivan reappeared in the doorway and snarled at him to move.

They ran down the corridor, Yuri following Ivan through twists and turns and down stairwells that he was barely familiar with, but as long as it took him further away from the office and the horrors it held, he didn't care. Ivan only stopped running when they got to a small door, barely noticeable in the dim lighting of the corridor, and all but pushed Yuri through it, flinging himself in after and slamming the door behind them.

The room was pitch black, and Yuri leaned forwards over his knees to catch his breath. His throat felt as dry as sand, air rasping from his lungs. Ivan moved around in front of him, Yuri heard the clang of metal on metal, the boy was obviously searching for something, and Yuri had to jerk his hand up to shield his eyes as the blinding light of a torch glared in his face.

"Sorry," Ivan mumbled, pointing the torch at the floor and wiping the blood from his chin.

Yuri took a quick glance around the room, if it could be called that, it was smaller than his own on the third floor, three of the four walls covered with shelving units packed full with boxes and bottles, old machinery parts and what Yuri hoped wasn't surgical equipment.

"Where are we?" he asked, his voice sounding far too strained.

"Science storage. Wasn't really bothering to look, to be honest." It seemed Ivan had been just as panicked as he was. "What took you so long? I was waiting for you—good thing I came back."

"How long was I in there?" Yuri didn't think he'd been that long, until he remembered that he'd sat on the carpet and read an entire year's worth of Boris' file. He blocked out the memory of the pages before it could rise in his mind.

"Nearly an hour. We said 20 minutes; you nearly messed this whole thing up." Ivan looked angered, something that, in Yuri's eyes, just didn't sit right on his face. Ivan was a joker, manipulative and sly, sure, but Yuri had never imagined him harbouring fury to the extent his expression held now. "I came _so close_ to just leaving you in there—"

"Then why didn't you?" Yuri hadn't meant to bite back, Ivan had probably saved his life by coming to look for him. Yuri had no doubt that the boys charging through the corridor had done so at Ivan's request. But the pressure of everything was tightening around his chest and Yuri couldn't help but be irritated by Ivan's words. He _knew_ how much was riding on their success, so for him to even _think_ about abandoning Yuri was unforgivable.

Ivan scoffed, crossing his arms. "Because apparently you’ve got a death wish. If I'd left you any longer I'd be stuck in this place for the rest of my life, and I wouldn't mind getting out." His expression softened slightly, and he shrugged his shoulders as if he were embarrassed. "Besides, I thought we were meant to be a team or something?"

Yuri relaxed almost immediately, feeling his irritation drain away. He gave Ivan a small, apologetic smile. "We are. Thanks, Vanya." Ivan's mouth quirked up in his usual grin and, just like that, their disagreement was forgotten.

In the light of the torch, Yuri pulled the crumpled paper from his waistband and piled it on the floor, pushing Ivan back when he tried to glance at the words. He didn't want Ivan to read it; the boy's life had been relatively easy in comparison to what many of the others had suffered and Yuri didn't want to skew Ivan's views of the Abbey. He drew Kai's envelope from the tear in his coat and wedged the folded pages into it.

"I need to take this to someone," he said, keeping his next move vague as he'd promised not to give too much away lest Ivan be interrogated about him. "What time is it?"

Ivan backed away from the door so he could leave first. "It was just on curfew earlier. Must be about 11, I'm guessing."

Yuri blinked, his eyes widening when he clocked just how late it was. Vasily made his deliveries early, before dawn, so he didn't get caught as guards started their morning rounds. He didn't have much time. Ivan barely had a chance to say goodbye as Yuri sped back up the stairs.

He skidded to a halt just outside Sergei and Vasily's door, pausing to catch his breath. Yuri raised his fist to knock and almost smacked it into Sergei's chest. The taller boy simply stared down at him, one eyebrow raised in a silent question.

"Is Vasya there?" he breathed, hoping that Sergei thought nothing odd of the dishevelled state he was surely in.

"I've not seen him." Sergei informed him blandly. Not the response he wanted to hear.

Stuck under Sergei's intense stare, Yuri felt fidgety, suddenly unsure of what he was supposed to do next. Vasily had told him that if he wanted anything sent out he needed to get it to him tonight, but from the sound of it, he was too late. He swore quietly under his breath. The papers he carried were burning a hole in his side, and Sergei's gaze momentarily flicked to where Yuri's fingers tangled in the hem of his coat.

Sergei leaned against the door frame and cast a distinctly concerned look down the corridor. He took a deep breath before turning back to Yuri, the concern he had spotted was completely covered by sheer nothingness. "There's a boy on the fifth floor, room 514. His name's Viktor. You might be able to catch him if you go now."

Yuri faltered, mind awash with questions. Was he understanding his friend correctly—had Sergei known all along what was going on? Or did he just know what Vasily got up to when he wasn't training? Should he _tell_ Sergei what was going on, despite Kai's clear warning? He'd already broken that rule by telling Boris, so what difference would it make?

He took one sideways step away, paused, felt as utterly stupid as he probably looked and just stared at the zipper on Sergei's jacket as he tried to make some sense of his mangled thoughts. Thankfully, Sergei's commanding voice made his next move crystal clear.

" _Go_ , Yura. Before I change my mind." He nodded, whispered a thank you, and Sergei's voice echoed down the corridor after him. "I hope you know what you're doing!"

In truth? He really wasn't so sure anymore.

Like the West wing Ivan complimented so much, the floors above his own were somewhere Yuri rarely had a reason to visit; Boris was on the second floor, and Sergei was on the third with him. In fact, he couldn't even remember the last time he had set foot on the fifth, and he felt unwelcome before he'd even left the stairwell.

The stares and whispers that followed him from the cracks in open doorways were worse than those he usually got, but he brushed them off, remembering the envelope in his coat and pushing himself onward down the corridor. The boy that opened the door numbered 514 wasn't a 'boy' at all—if Sergei was a giant then the behemoth that glared down at him from the door was, well, Yuri couldn't think of anything large enough to properly describe him. Staring up at the taller boy's face couldn't have been too dissimilar to how Ivan felt when talking to him.

"I need to see Viktor?" Yuri asked, forcing confidence into his voice and keeping his head held high. Not that the fact that he was captain of the Abbey's first line team seemed to have much power behind it anymore, now he was on the same level as everyone else.

"Who is it?" A feeble sounding voice called out from somewhere further back in the room.

Yuri was about to open his mouth to give his name when the monster overrode him.

"The red-hair kid from third who Vasya mentioned." The monster's voice sounded like the growl of a bear. Yuri didn't know whether to feel flattered or fearful that Vasily had thought to bring him up in conversation, confused by the fact that the monster didn’t even know his name.

There was movement from inside the room, and a moment later the monster shifted to the side to allow a scrawny boy's face—he looked no taller than Yuri's bicep—to squeeze into the doorway.

"You Seriy's friend?" The boy Yuri assumed to be Viktor asked, and Yuri nodded. He certainly didn't seem the part, looked barely able to stand on his own two feet let alone run a secret, under the radar delivery service, and if it wasn't for the fact that the boy had mentioned Sergei's name, Yuri would have assumed that his friend had got him mixed up with someone else.

"Hand it over then, quick. Then get out of here." A skinny hand extended from the darkness of the room, and Yuri instantly picked up on the scars of old wounds painted over the boy's skin, wondering absently what someone who seemed so young could have done to deserve them. Not that anyone in the Abbey deserved the punishments they received.

Yuri slipped the envelope from the tear in his coat and pressed it into Viktor's waiting palm. "How will I know if he receives it? It's important."

Viktor's eyes scanned the names on the envelope—Kai’s and his own crossed out and re-written—and he locked Yuri in a questioning stare that made him feel ridiculously small. "No guarantees."

Yuri made to follow him when he disappeared, intent on explaining just _how_ important the envelope was as it had their entire future riding on it, but a heavy hand landed on his head, thick fingers tangling in his hair, and pushed him backwards into the hallway. The door slammed shut, leaving Yuri standing alone with cold dread settling in his stomach.

What if Kai didn't get the information he needed in time? What happened then?

He dragged himself back to his room, legs feeling like lead and heart heavy with anxiety. He collapsed onto the bottom bunk, couldn't even bring himself to climb the ladder, and wrapped his coat tighter around his body. Something crinkled in his sleeve, and he recalled the sheet of paper he had shoved there as he was running from Valkov's office.

Ever so gently, he pulled it free and rolled onto his back so he could see it properly. His birth certificate, of all things. Yuri had never felt so glad for _anything_ as he did for remembering to pick it up from the desk. If Valkov had returned to find it he would have noticed immediately that someone had been looking through Yuri's file, and as he already suspected Yuri was planning something, no doubt he would have been able to put the two together.

Something unusual caught Yuri's eye on the certificate, and he stood up to read it clearer under the moonlight from his window. He'd thought his eyes were deceiving him, but after a long minute of reading the same word over and over, realised that he wasn't making a mistake. There, right before his eyes, clearly written under his mother's name, was her nationality; not Russian like his father, no. His mother was from Finland.

Anger boiled, and Yuri leaned further back against the window in the hopes that the cold from the glass would cool the burning under his skin. He'd hated his mother ever since she disappeared—not for walking out on his father, Yuri may have been young at the time but he could still recall how he used to hurt her—but he hated her for leaving _him_ behind. For leaving him to suffer his father's alcoholic rage. Now, having seen that one little word curled on the page, curiosity was starting to creep up on him. In a way, he was only _half_ Russian, and he couldn't help but want to learn more about his mother, about her family, about where the other half of him came from.

He cast his mind back to the time before his mother had walked out on him and his father, but couldn't remember her once mentioning anything about Finland. Or her family, for that matter. He didn't even know his mother's own surname. On his birth certificate, she was Marja Ivanova, not even a second name or patronymic, and his parents had been married so her last name was his father's. A dejected sigh escaped his lips, and Yuri tucked the certificate into the inside lining of his coat.

Perhaps, once he was out of the Abbey— _if_ he got out—Kai would be able to help him find out more about her. Yuri was sure there must have been more in his file in Valkov's office, details he hadn't had time to look over, maybe even details about his mother. All he needed was her family name and he was sure he would be able to search for her somehow.

The tiniest glimmer of something hopeful flickered in his heart. Maybe, just maybe, if he managed to find her—if she even remembered him—he could have a family again.


	16. Chapter 16

Someone knocked heavily on the door, interrupting Yuri's quiet, close-up appreciation of his pillow. He groaned, shoved his hair angrily away from his face and slid down to the ground, already preparing words in his mind to send whoever had dared to visit him fleeing.

He probably should have expected the boy standing on the other side, all things considered, but Yuri couldn't quite fight the stunned expression from his face as he wordlessly let Piotr into his room. He watched as Piotr silently settled on the edge of the bottom bunk with arms resting limply over his knees, waiting for the boy to speak or cry or _something_ , because the wide-eyed look of disbelief he was wearing just didn't suit him at all.

After a long while, Yuri gave up waiting, figuring that Piotr wasn't going to offer anything and instead opting to return to forcing himself to sleep. He got one foot on the ladder when the tiniest of whispers escaped Piotr's lips.

"Anton's gone."

Yuri resisted the urge to roll his eyes, keeping his expression neutral and his voice flat. "I'm tired, Piotr."

The boy jumped as if he'd been electrocuted; face twisting in fear and despair. "But he's _gone_ , Yuri! He’s just vanished!"

Yes, he'd gathered that much. Piotr fell back to the bunk and fisted his hands in his hair, words tumbling from his mouth, desperate and anguished, and Yuri was almost taken aback by just how miserable the boy was. Had he misunderstood something? Hadn't Piotr been asking Yuri what he needed to do in order to buy his freedom from Anton not too long ago?

He felt himself scowl at the thought that he may have wasted his time. Piotr caught the look, eyes flying so wide Yuri thought they might pop out of his skull.

Recognition suddenly flickered across the boy's face. " _You_ —"

"Go to sleep. I'm not letting you stay if you're going to keep talking."

Piotr made a noise that sounded like a strangled animal, tangling his hands in his hair again and staring down at the floor with a whine. Yuri sighed impatiently, closing his eyes and willing away the anger bubbling in his gut. Exactly what was _wrong_ with this boy? Yuri could be indecisive himself, he knew that, but Piotr was on another level entirely.

"Listen to me," Yuri murmured, pleased that even though he was exhausted, he could still manage the dangerous tint in his voice. He stood directly in front of Piotr, bracing one hand on the rail above him and hoisting the boy up slightly by his collar. The fear in Piotr's eyes was sickening. "Anton Vitaliev is gone, yes, but _I did nothing_. Understand?"

He had to shake Piotr before he responded, the boy managing only a small, curt nod. His fist tightened. "Good. Now, either you stay here and not say another word, or you _leave_."

Piotr swallowed thickly, heaved a staggering breath before he spoke. "I'll stay. Please."

Yuri pushed him backwards onto the mattress but said nothing more as he returned to his own bed. Piotr was far too easily frightened, something anyone would be able to take advantage of. No, the boy wouldn't last much longer in the Abbey at all. He closed his eyes, focusing on his own breathing and forcing every other little thing from his mind until all he was left with was a deep blackness.

* * *

A gust of freezing wind battered Yuri's body, tearing through his clothes and numbing his skin. He was running hard, sprinting across the snow, darting between gnarled and menacing trees. Brambles scratched at his legs and his lungs were on fire but he couldn't stop. He had no idea why he was running, no clue what he was running from, but instinct screamed at him to keep going and he knew he couldn't risk slowing down.

Someone followed just behind him, the person's footsteps and their panting breaths echoing in Yuri's ears just as loud as his pounding heart. Daring a glance back, Yuri easily recognised Boris running with him. It was too dark to make out his friend's face, but he could clearly see the fresh lacerations littering his arms. Boris wasn't wearing his jacket or boots, feet leaving bloody smears in the snow.

They cleared the trees, staggering to a halt in a clearing that was eerily quiet and looked all too familiar. Yuri looked back at the Abbey looming above them, feeling blind panic rise in his gut at the invisible enemy they were running from. He turned, taking in what he could in the darkness; he couldn't see the iron wall, the barrier that kept them caged in the Abbey grounds. Had they made it out? Were they finally _free_?

Boris retched somewhere behind him and Yuri whirled around in alarm, seeing his friend hunched over his knees, violently coughing up blood. He tried to call out, opened his mouth but couldn't make a sound. The ground between them stretched and warped, hitting Yuri with sudden vertigo. Abruptly Boris stood upright, rigid, and stared straight at Yuri with bright eyes.

Except it wasn't his friend before him, something wasn't right. Thin lips curled into a sneer, and Yuri could have screamed if he were able as Boris writhed and contorted, morphing into someone else, tall and intimidating and causing a sharp, intense fear to flare in Yuri's mind.

Valkov was talking, face smug and threatening, but Yuri barely able to hear anything through the rush of blood in his ears. He swallowed, blinking away the sting of tears, and out of nowhere Valkov levelled a gun at him.

Yuri's mouth flew open in shock. He tried to beg, tried to plead as Valkov's finger twitched on the trigger, frustrated and horrified that he couldn't manage a single sound. He staggered back, tripped on nothing and fell to his knees in the snow, knew he was crying yet could do nothing to stop himself.

The gun didn't follow him down, aimed at something else, _someone_ else, and Yuri swallowed his fear for just long enough to look behind at who he hoped wasn't stood there.

Kai.

They'd been found out.

He had his back to them, oblivious to the threat in Valkov's hands and Yuri silently screamed at him to turn around, to duck, but Kai didn't hear him. A flash of light blinded Yuri, the sharp bang of the gun piercing his ears, and Kai buckled, slumping forwards into the snow.

Yuri tried to move, fingers clawing at the ground in a hopeless attempt to crawl over, but his entire body was frozen still, heavy as lead. His chest heaved as he sobbed, watching Kai bleed and unable to do anything to prevent it.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted Boris standing just beyond Kai, staring down at him with cold, hollow eyes. Yuri urged him to help, pleading and demanding that he do something— _anything_ —his words dripping with the terror swirling in his mind. But Boris did nothing, just stood, arms hanging limp at his sides, and watched unblinkingly as Kai died at his feet.

Kai opened his eyes, blurry and glazed, and Yuri found himself caught, unable to look away. Kai was talking to him, a cracked, gurgling whisper that Yuri heard but couldn't understand. His body convulsed suddenly, seizing up for a long, tense moment before a final breath wheezed from his lips.

Yuri tried to fight the invisible pressure holding him down and managed to force himself to his feet when the air flashed with blinding light again, followed a split-second later by the loud, echoing sound of the gun.

Wind whizzed by Yuri's ear as everything seemed to slow down. Yuri watched in horror as Boris suddenly became alert, jerking his head up, eyes wide in alarm. But he was too late, far too late. Blood bloomed from Boris chest, shocked green eyes locking with Yuri for a second, swirling with surprise and confusion, before he crumpled.

When Yuri screamed, he barely recognised his own voice.

A hand clamped over his mouth to muffle the noise, something flying into his back and sending him sprawling to the floor, grabbing him tightly, smothering him as Yuri clenched his eyes shut and tried in vain to fight back against the invisible force. Valkov was gone, the trees had vanished, the Abbey was no longer looming over them.

All that lay in the snow were Yuri himself, the boy who had trusted his life to Yuri and his closest friend who he would do anything for.

Something urged him to open his eyes, a quiet whisper in the back of his mind, soft and soothing. The pressure around him became a person's arms, warm, comforting, holding him close as the bloodied snow around him shimmered and faded.

He was drifting, free-falling in the dark with the stranger holding him, unable to see who it was and unable to ask as he couldn't draw in a breath. Fear surged through him again, suffocating, choking on nothing, lack of oxygen leaving him light-headed and faint.

Suddenly something slammed hard against his back, pain sparking down his spine. It jerked his lungs back to life, and Yuri gulped in the air he'd been starved of. The whispers returned, more urgent now and insisting that he had to open his eyes, had to wake up, but he felt terrified to do so. The horror he'd just witnessed burned permanently on his mind.

 _Wake up, please Yuri_ …

Blinking slowly, he stared up at the blurry form hovering over him, wanted to believe it was Boris—or even Kai—but he knew it would be neither, it couldn't be, because he'd just seen—

A bright flash of light and sharp bang made Yuri jump, leaping up and smashing his forehead on something above him, startling the stranger at his side. Panicking, he scrambled away, yelping as his desperate hands clawed at thin air and he fell backwards to the ground, slamming his head on the floor with a wince.

"Yuri!"

It wasn't Boris, it wasn't Kai, but it was still a voice Yuri recognised. He opened his eyes a fraction, blinking to clear his blurred vision, the ceiling of his room and the familiar sight of his bed swimming into view. A quick succession of flashes and bangs lit up his room, and Yuri lurched upright again, struggling to catch his breath.

"Yuri—it's alright, they're fireworks."

The light danced again over the figure crouched on the top bunk—not a stranger at all. Piotr watched him with obvious concern, and Yuri suddenly noticed that he was on the floor with his feet hooked around the bottom rungs of the ladder. Reality crashed into him head-on, and Yuri fell back to the floor with a groan, pressing his palms into his eyes.

A nightmare. A ridiculous, pathetic nightmare. One of the rare occasions he had actually managed to fall asleep, and he'd been betrayed by his own imagination, forced to suffer through a horrific ordeal all inside his own head. And to make it worse, Piotr—weak, pitiful, _worthless_ Piotr—had taken it upon himself to rescue him from his dreams.

His legs were lifted from the ladder, Piotr carefully setting his feet back on the ground. Yuri felt a brush of air at his side, looking up to see the other boy standing over him with his hand outstretched, intending to help him up.

Yuri ignored the offer, rolling away from Piotr and pushing himself up from the floor. He almost jumped again when light flooded his room but forced the reaction down, walking the short distance to the window to glare out into the night. Sure enough, fireworks lit up the sky over Red Square, illuminating the cathedral. Piotr had moved to stand next to him and Yuri could feel the worry radiating from the boy.

With a sigh, Yuri forced his hand through his damp hair, pulling it away from the light sweat that had gathered on his forehead and the back of his neck. He pressed his face against the cold glass, closing his eyes and willing himself to forget his nightmare.

Piotr shifted nervously at his side. "Want to talk?"

"No." Yuri didn't even have to think about it. He never wanted to reveal to anyone what he had just witnessed, real or not. Some things were better left unsaid; even forgetting Kai, to reveal that he had dreamed about his closest friend being killed gave away just how much he truly cared, and if that knowledge fell into the wrong hands… no, it was bad enough that Valkov knew the truth, Yuri couldn't afford anybody else finding out such a weakness.

If anything, Piotr seemed a little put-off by Yuri's obvious rejection but he didn't push further. Yuri looked back out over Moscow, wondering whether Kai was out in Red Square and wishing he could join him. It may have been nearly a decade ago, but Yuri could still remember vividly a time when he would stand out in the cold in Saint Petersburg with his mother and father, watching fireworks above the city late into the night. Yet another thing he had sacrificed the moment he entered the Abbey.

"Yuri?" Piotr was looking at him and Yuri cautiously met his eyes, trying and failing miserably to keep the scowl from his face. Piotr didn't seem to mind as a tentative smile lightly curled his lips. "Happy new year."

"Is it?"

The way his head had snapped around in surprise was amusing, apparently, and Piotr chuckled quietly as he nodded. "It's January first."

"Right." Yuri realised slowly that he'd been so caught up in everything else that had happened since the World Championship that he'd forgotten what the date was. He cleared his throat, intent on hiding his shock—too late, not that it mattered, Piotr had already seen him at his worst—and the grim attempt at a smile he forced onto his lips wasn't fair on the other boy at all. "Of course it is."

He didn't bother to return the boy's words. Maybe Ivan was right; maybe he should go for a medical after all.


	17. Chapter 17

Going for a medical was an ordeal he’d always hated, but getting booked in for an appointment a week earlier than required turned out to be a nightmare in itself.

The assistants he spoke to were completely unaffected by his distress, indifferent almost, as if they were ignoring him in the hope that he would just disappear. Their reaction wasn't expected at all, usually they would jump at the chance to poke and prod and analyse; most of the boys in the Abbey did all they could to avoid having to visit the medical department for that very reason, masking their injuries until they faded or became too serious to ignore.

Yuri could understand, the medical wards were a source of fear, not of healing, but he needed to speak to someone, needed a reason for his seemingly random blackouts and his collapse in front of Ivan. He had managed to catch up to one of the more senior doctors in the corridor as he left for the evening, latching onto the man's arm and pleading with him to run tests, hook him up to machines, give him medication or _something_ —he was being over-dramatic, it seemed to be the only way he could get a response—but the man merely brushed him off with a flick of his hand and told him to try sleeping.

If only it were that easy; Yuri was sure that his lack of sleep—his _inability_ to sleep—was at least linked in some way to the blackouts, but he wasn't convinced it was the main cause. Surely if he were fainting from exhaustion he wouldn't be lying awake every night.

Out of sheer desperation, Yuri had begged for an extra session with one of the training technicians and shut them both in one of the smaller rooms. Now he found himself staring down at his blade in the middle of the battle dish, trying to convince whatever scrap of sanity he still held onto that what he was about to do was the only way he could get himself seen.

Wolborg's presence flickered in his mind and Yuri was sure he could sense confusion amid her usual soothing aura. He knew she didn't agree with him, couldn't explain _how_ he knew, but her concern was definitely there. A quick glance confirmed that the technician was too involved with the computer station to notice what he was doing. Good.

Yuri tore off his jacket, slinging it to the side as he raised his left arm and braced one foot behind him. It would hurt, that was a certainty, but Yuri was no stranger to pain. It was for a better cause; he would just have deal with it. Forcing himself to block out everything from his mind, Yuri gave his order. Wolborg hesitated for only a second; Yuri clenched his fists and set his jaw.

Even biting down on his lip barely muffled his howl of pain as his blade spun from the dish and deliberately cut a ragged gash in his skin.

The technician was on him in an instant, hands grabbing at his shoulders, his face, scrabbling at the wound and causing him to flinch. Rough cloth was wrapped haphazardly around his arm and soaked instantly with blood. He allowed himself a glimmer of a smile as he was half-marched, half-dragged through the corridors and down into the medical ward.

The wound was cleaned, stitched and wrapped in a matter of minutes—anaesthetic wasn't even offered as he'd caused the damage himself—and as expected, the doctors elected to run his full appointment earlier than scheduled. Anything to give them more free time. Not that Yuri cared; he'd finally got what he wanted.

They ran test after test, connected him with cables to beeping computers, scanned him with hulking machines that Yuri still knew nothing about, drew blood through thick needles that made Yuri wince and injected him with mysterious liquids, constantly muttering to each other so quietly that he couldn't hear a word over the endless tapping of computer keys.

Two hours later, Yuri was deposited back into the corridor with his jacket slung over his good arm and more on his mind than he'd had when he'd arrived. Throughout the entire session he hadn't been given the opportunity to ask questions. He hadn't been given the opportunity to say much of anything, in fact, aside from simple, one-word answers. Nobody had bothered to check if he had any concerns, any symptoms that worried him, nothing.

Slicing into his own arm had rewarded him with only a deep, stinging pain when he flexed his wrist and a code nine stamped on his file that he hadn't been allowed to query. The doctors in the Abbey didn't believe in offering second opinions. But a code nine meant he was fit and healthy, which he definitely wasn't. How could he be fit and healthy and yet collapse when he was standing still? How could he be well and yet be constantly exhausted and incapable of sleep? How could there be nothing wrong with him when there were so many gaps in his memory, so many random blips where he had blacked out only to find himself in a completely different place?

How could he be absolutely _fine_ and yet be walking around the Abbey without even knowing it?

He figured that the medical team must have been hiding something from him; there really was no other explanation. But unless he could see his medical file he had no way of finding out what it was. If he asked, they wouldn't tell him a thing. A familiar face appeared in his mind; he needed to see his file without anyone knowing he was looking, which meant he needed to find Ivan.

The West wing was as uninviting as usual. Yuri wanted to roll his sleeve down to cover the dressing on his arm and keep it out of sight of prying eyes, berating himself for stupidly deciding to drop his jacket off in his room after his appointment. The doctors had all but torn his sleeve to shreds to get at his wound, leaving the fraying end dangling at his elbow. The damage didn't matter to them, the standard Abbey uniforms were simple and basic and could be replaced without much fuss, but it left Yuri feeling vulnerable.

Boys that paraded their wounds made easy targets.

Someone he only faintly recognised answered Ivan's door and Yuri spared a quick glance at the peeling room number to confirm he was in the right place before he spoke. "I'm looking for Ivan. Is he here?"

"Ivan Papov? Why?" the boy asked, mouth tilted in a nasty sneer that instantly set Yuri on edge.

He blamed the sudden urge to reach for the boy's throat on the anger that remained from his useless medical trip and pushed the desire away. He didn't bother to mask the irritation in his voice, however. "Have you seen him or not?"

"Depends why you're asking." Either the boy leaning in the doorway really wanted to get hurt, or he honestly had no idea who he was talking to.

Yuri guessed the former; _everyone_ knew who he was. "Does it matter?"

"Yes." A single word accompanied by a distinctively nonchalant expression that Yuri was more accustomed to seeing on Boris' pale face, usually when he was deliberately provoking one of the other boys for fun. He'd rarely been on the receiving end of it himself, quickly coming to appreciate just how _infuriating_ it was.

He took a deep breath that wasn't even remotely calming, lifting his good arm to pinch the bridge of his nose. "It's a simple question; either you've seen him or you haven't."

"Wow, someone’s annoyed. You going to slap me or something?"

"Lay off him, Oleg." A new voice called out from behind the door, footsteps moving closer until another boy—Yuri recognised him as one of Ivan's roommates but knew him only as 'Slava'—appeared behind Oleg and braced his hand on the door frame. "Can't you see he's injured? Poor little thing."

Frustrated by what was an obvious, patronising taunt, Yuri let out a growl and turned on his heel; he didn't have time to play games.

"Wait, Ivanov!" He halted abruptly, barely a few paces from the room, and glared down at the stone floor. Oleg was standing in the corridor with his hands in his pockets, a smug grin on his lips. "I got a question; what does it feel like to go from being the favourite to being no better than dirt like the rest of us?"

" _You_ —" Yuri snapped, whirling around and marching towards the boy before he even realised he was moving. He stopped short as Slava's hand slammed down on his shoulder, sending a dull wave of pain through his arm.

"Just leave, you're not welcome here," the boy muttered icily, drawing a jeering snicker from his friend.

Yuri didn't need to be told again, wishing for nothing more than to reach the end of the hallway before he lost control and hit something, or someone. He kicked the metal railing in the stairwell twice to vent his anger before throwing his arms over it and slumping forwards with his eyes screwed shut.

He could have been stood for a minute or a whole hour, he wasn't sure, but he moved away again as the sound of heavy boots echoed through the stairwell. He didn't feel up to explaining his presence to a merciless guard.

Ivan didn't even flinch when Yuri finally barged through the right door into his workroom, merely throwing a somewhat bored glance over his shoulder. "Evening, how's the wonderful Neoborg captain today?"

"Shut up," Yuri spat, jamming an empty chair against Ivan's side and dropping onto it, crossing his arms sharply and covering his wince with a scowl.

"Ouch! I'm hurt." Ivan gave a quiet laugh that ruined any hint of seriousness in his voice and turned back to the beyblade parts he had spread over the table. He continued to work in silence, carefully picking up each part in turn and inspecting it with a magnifying lens. It wasn't until Yuri laid his arms across the table and rested his head on the surface that he spoke up again. "What happened to you?"

I took a second for Yuri to realise the boy was talking about his wound, remembering suddenly that the dressing was in clear sight. "I went for a medical." Ivan didn't need to know _why_ he went.

"Before or after you got cut open?"

There was something mocking in Ivan's tone that reminded Yuri of his run-in with the boy's roommates, bringing his irritation rushing back to the surface. "Why do you care?"

Yuri would have been lying if he claimed not to notice the split-second hesitation before Ivan replied. "I don't." He shook his head, firing off a question of his own almost simultaneously. "What do you want?"

Of course; there was a reason he'd wanted to find Ivan in the first place. Yuri cleared his throat and sat a little straighter in his chair. "I need to see my records again, medical records," he explained quietly; he trusted Ivan, but he wasn't entirely sure how safe the room was. "You can access them, right?"

"Depends. What’s in it for me?"

Had he been in a good mood, sat with Ivan for a different reason, had he _not_ been worrying over the secrets he might uncover in his file, Yuri would have welcomed Ivan's playful attitude. He may have even retorted with something witty and sarcastic. But he wasn't in a good mood and the boy in front of him was only making him feel worse, so instead Ivan was treated to a dirty glare and an icy threat. "Don't toy with me Vanya, or I _swear_ I’ll hurt you."

"Alright, alright. Calm down." Holding his hands up before him in surrender, Ivan leaned over to collect his laptop from under the table. Yuri watched without saying another word as Ivan skipped through the security screens as if they didn't even exist.

The silence dragged on, more suffocating and uncomfortable the longer it lasted. Ivan's constant clicking slowed, became almost tentative, until he was frowning down at the monitor and tapping his fingers nervously on the surface of the keys.

"That's weird," he murmured eventually.

Yuri was on his feet in an instant, his previous reservations surrounding the medical team flooding back. He braced his hand on the back of Ivan's chair to steady himself and tried to force the concern from his voice. "What is?"

"Don't really know. There's something here I can't get to, but I’m meant to have full access. Unless…" Ivan clicked his tongue and dug his teeth into his lower lip as he thought, staring hard at the wall opposite them. His eyes widened with a sudden spark of genius. "They must've changed the permissions again—hang on."

In the space of a heartbeat, Ivan had gathered the cables and the little black box Yuri had seen before from the bottom of the filing cabinet, yanking the battery out of his laptop to forcibly shut it down before restarting. In his mind, Yuri knew that getting through the security again took the same amount of time as it had previously, but it felt as though an entire week had passed before he saw his file pop up again.

The clicking and switching from screen to screen resumed again, keyboard strokes and the swipe of Ivan's fingers across the touch-pad growing more and more deliberate as the boy became increasingly agitated.

"No, still can't get in. _Damn_ it." He let out an irritable huff, throwing his arms in the air as he flung himself against the backrest of his chair, briefly knocking it onto two legs. "Did something happen to you about a year ago? Something they’d wanna hide?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out," Yuri said, concern rising sharply with how little he was able to see on the records Ivan had pulled up. His medical notes and appointment results were all neatly arranged by date and time, just as he had expected, but as Ivan pointed out, there was a sudden four month jump between dates for no obvious reason.

Yuri closed his eyes, throwing his mind back to see if he could recall anything. The blank in his file wasn't long after the World Championship in Spain; after the team had returned to the Abbey victorious, they'd been allowed a single day's break—a reward that was barely worth the trouble they'd gone through to achieve it—before training resumed as usual. Nothing out of the ordinary had occurred at all.

It made no sense; ever since Yuri could remember he had been seen for a medical once a fortnight without fail, whether he needed to or not. He could even vividly remember times he was pulled out of training sessions—in the middle of a recorded battle or even a timed circuit—in order to attend his appointments. He would have been seen in those four months, he was sure of that, so why was there nothing on his file to prove it?

Ivan restarted his laptop and began the arduous process of fighting through the security again; making a second attempt at finding an explanation for the gap but unable to return anything useful. "So you don't remember anything?"

"Did you not hear what I just said?" He was getting frustrated now, struggling to reign in the emotion rolling in his gut. Ivan must have noticed, the regretful glimmer in his eyes was clear enough, and he backtracked through the security once again to try a different set of access details.

When the third attempt brought up even less information than before; Yuri wanted to put his fist through the screen.

"Damn, sorry…" Ivan breathed, scrolling absently through the file as he slouched in his seat. "If you wanna wait here for a bit, I might know someone who’ll look into it. Might be able to get me access again."

"Who?" Yuri asked, unable to help being overly cautious.

Ivan gave a lopsided shrug and rolled his eyes to the ceiling, a familiar smirk playing on his lips. "Some of the engineers are… well, let's just say they aren't Valkov's biggest fans and leave it at that," he said casually, leaving Yuri to figure out the unspoken explanation himself. "I should be able to catch them if I go now. If you want me to ask, that is."

Yuri considered his words; he wasn't overly pleased by the thought of anyone else getting involved, making Ivan aware of his concerns was dangerous enough, but he trusted that he wouldn't speak to just _anyone_ about the issue, trusted him to make a good judgement over who he could an couldn't talk to. After all, Ivan seemed to know a lot more about the engineering teams than Yuri ever would himself. He sighed quietly and relented. "Fine, do it. I don't have anywhere else to be."

"I won't be long. And captain?" Ivan's voice echoed in the drawer as he returned the laptop cables. "Probably best you don't leave this room; to be honest, West wing in general doesn't really like you."

He'd learnt that only an hour ago. "I had a run-in with someone already," he muttered before he could bite his tongue. Ivan shot him a questioning glance from the doorway and Yuri realised he was going to have to elaborate. "Two of the boys from your room, I think; Oleg and Slava?"

Ivan visibly flinched at the latter and Yuri's curiosity was piqued. The pair had been infuriating, yes, but Yuri hadn't seen them as anything more than a nuisance. Ivan, on the other hand, looked almost fearful. "Oleg's a waste of space. But trust me, Yura, stay away from Vladislav. You really don’t wanna get involved with him."

Yuri didn't get the chance to probe any further as the door closed on Ivan's back before he could open his mouth. He sighed loudly to the empty room, rammed his heel back against the chair leg and sprawled over the table again to pluck up a beyblade part Ivan had abandoned. It only took a second for him to recognise the metal circle in his hand as Wyborg's attack-ring, minus his bit-chip; Ivan had probably been in the middle of checking for damage when he'd been interrupted.

Out of curiosity, Yuri took Wolborg from his pocket and placed her on the table. There was a stark difference between the two designs, he didn't need to be as knowledgeable as Ivan to see that—not that he was useless when it came to blade development, it simply didn't feature in his training—and he marvelled for a moment at the depth of detail involved.

He was struck by a thought that should really have occurred to him a while ago—it probably would have done had he not been distracted by everything else—their team, the four of them, were almost perfectly balanced. The rulebook stated four main battle styles; endurance, attack, defence and agility, not an extensive list, of course, but definitely the most identifiable.

He wondered if it happened to be pure coincidence that the current top four beybladers in the Abbey slotted easily into those categories, or whether Valkov had played a part in ensuring that certain boys were trained _specifically_ with that aim in mind. He wouldn't put it past the man, and it certainly explained why the focus was so often on them and not on anyone else.

Sighing again, more a heavy exhale than anything, Yuri laid his head on his good arm and waited for Ivan to return.


	18. Chapter 18

Cold. That was probably the first thing he felt. Not the sort of cold that carried on the wind or the freezing tingle of ice, but the sort of cold that settled deep in your bones. The sort that sent shivers down your spine and shooting pains through your nerves.

He couldn't feel a thing except the cold. No shivers, no pain, just the unforgiving cold. When he cracked open his eyes and stared up into nothing but darkness, Yuri realised his entire body was numb, paralysed.

Panic tightened in his chest, suffocating his lungs, his heart beating erratically as he struggled in vain, begged his body to move, to do something, _anything_.

Pain flared at the back of his head, inside his skull. Pain so sharp and so intense that he screamed.

His body jerked to life, hands scrabbling at the rough floor beneath him and pulling him to his knees. Dry, retching coughs forced their way out as he gasped shaky, rasping breaths. When the coughing finally subsided, Yuri slumped weakly to the floor, unable to hold himself up on his trembling arms.

His vision swam back into focus and he was surrounded by the dark again. Where was he? Somewhere behind him, slightly to his left, he could hear a steady drip. The ground was solid stone, he stretched out his fingers and found the wall before him to be the same.

But where?

His first thought was the isolation cells, but that couldn't be right. The last thing he could remember was sitting alone in Ivan's workroom. To be in isolation was a punishment and he couldn't recall doing anything wrong. Unless Ivan had— _no_. Surely he wouldn't…

Yuri heard the muffled creak of a door being opened, the jangle of heavy iron keys and the clunk of a lock interrupting his thoughts. He opened his eyes again, not sure when he had closed them, and slowly, agonisingly twisted his head to stare over his shoulder.

A thick barred door stood between him and a dimly lit corridor. Not isolation, but one of the underground cells, the sort he knew stood outside the main science labs. The realisation struck fear in Yuri's gut.

There was movement outside his door, the source of the noise. Only a moment later, more footsteps echoed off the walls around him. People passed by his doorway; specialist guards armed with pistols and scientists in their crisp white coats—except they weren't white. Even in the poor light, Yuri could make out the red smears staining their chests and arms, the blood seemed to glow, taunting him.

He stayed perfectly still, eyes fixed on his doorway, and swallowed the lump of anxiety in his throat as he heard something—someone—being dragged down the corridor behind the men. A scientist turned, looked straight through Yuri as if he wasn't there at all. Yuri couldn't see his face, nothing but a blur, though he recognised with dread the boy being pulled across the stone by his elbows; _Kai_.

His body was littered with injuries; wounds that bled a trail of scarlet along the floor, yellowing bruises over every spare inch of skin. He looked horrifyingly thin, sickly, almost dead, and Yuri wished for nothing more than to move to the bars to comfort him, to look on him and confirm he was still living before he was thrown into the cell opposite. But he could still barely move.

The world flickered, blacking out for only a split-second, and just as abruptly as they had arrived, the men disappeared. He hadn't watched them walk out, hadn't heard their retreating footsteps, it was as if they'd just vanished. The silence in the corridor was thick and deafening.

"Yuri?" A voice, so cracked and quiet that he could barely hear it. "What—" The voice descended into wet, straining coughs.

It sounded nothing like he remembered at all, but the desperation in Kai's tone overrode any feeling of suspicion. Yuri splayed his palms on the ground on front of him, struggling to crawl up to the door. His breath came in short, sharp pants. It shouldn't have been difficult; the space from the door to where he lay was five paces at the most, though to Yuri, it felt like an entire lifetime had passed before he leaned heavily against the cold metal bars.

"Yuri…" Kai's voice had changed again, quieter still, strained and uncertain.

"I'm here."

He squinted into the darkness opposite, watching the shadow of Kai's form writhe in his cell, listening to his agonised moans and ragged breath as he forced himself upright, only to collapse back to the ground with a painful cry. A pale face peered out at him, resting against the bars of his cell. The light in the corridor was dim, but Yuri could still make out his features. What he saw left him speechless.

Whoever lay on the other side of the corridor, whoever was staring at him, it certainly wasn't Kai. Not the Kai he remembered, not the Kai who had been so powerful and dominating during the tournament. It was as if the boy he knew had withered and decayed. Dark, matted hair clung to the bloodied skin of his face, body contorted with pain. Yuri found his eyes the most disturbing; dull, lifeless, the colour had drained and left them hollow and grey. The burning fire was gone.

"Yuri?" Kai whispered, the corner of his cracked, red-stained lips curled with the ghost of what Yuri imagined was once a smile. "I thought… he told me you were dead."

"What? Who did?"

"My grandfather, he—" Words twisted into wet, spluttering coughs and Yuri didn't get to hear the rest.

The cell he was in lurched, sending him spiralling into darkness. He felt his arms flailing for purchase on something, anything, but only grasped thin air.

The very second he felt the ground below his fingers again, he forced himself to his feet, stumbling the few paces to the cell door and throwing himself against it. He spotted the form of a boy huddled at the back of the cell opposite, but he wasn't moving. "Kai?"

Nothing.

"Kai, please… _say something_ …"

Nothing. Silence. Only the dripping pipe in his cell.

He hoped, god, how he hoped that he was just dreaming. That he'd passed out again and that he was just lost in his thoughts. He couldn't care less if he was walking around the Abbey asleep in his own mind, couldn't care less if he was putting himself in danger by doing so, because at least then, that way, what he saw before him wasn't real.

He prayed it wasn't. Kai couldn't be… but, what if he was? What if their plan had been found out? Kai had said that his grandfather—the Director—had Valkov found out that Yuri had gone through the files and told him? Found out that Kai had been involved, that Kai was the one planning to bring the entire corporation down?

And what about Ivan—had Valkov worked out he was part of the plan? Had Ivan _told_ him? What about Boris, and Sergei and Vasily and the boy who had delivered his last letter... what had Valkov done to the boys he trusted, relied on, the boys he called his friends? Had they found out that he'd made a mistake— _had_ he made a mistake?

Had they hated him for it?

Suddenly he desperately, _frantically_ wanted to apologise, wasn't sure whether the broken string of confessions and excuses he could hear were falling from his own lips or not.

He was crying when the scientists in their bloodied lab coats appeared again—from nowhere, Yuri hadn't heard their footsteps—flanked by the armed guards. Though there was no tension in them as they unlocked the cell opposite his. Hands hung to the side rather than on pistol grips, the scientists stood close by rather than cowering in the shadows. As if they didn't expect the boy in the cell to resist them, as if they no longer saw him as a threat.

A torch clicked, light flaring in the corridor and burning Yuri's eyes. As it was shone over the face of the boy, Yuri's heart stopped.

It wasn't Kai at all. Pale skin, dirty red hair, those dull, lifeless eyes were a familiar blue.

The body hanging from their grip was his own.

_Are you happy?_

No. _No_! Of course he wasn't—how could he be after what he'd just seen? He'd just watched himself _die_. And he'd thought it was someone else, had been talking to someone else as it happened. What the hell was wrong with him?

_You already know._

No, he didn't. He had no idea. He couldn't help the dry retch that tore itself from his throat, wincing at the pain as his stomach clenched.

_If only you could remember._

The pain in his skull struck back, something tightened around his head.

_Time to wake up, Yuri Ivanov_ _…_

With shaking hands, Yuri laced his fingers through tangled hair, felt a thick wad of gauze bandaged just above his ear, and watched the cell black out again.

"Damn it! Wake up already!" The voice was so different to whoever he had just heard; it took a minute for him to recognise it. Recognition was followed by a white-hot pain shooting up his left arm, yanking him back to reality.

He winced, rolling onto his back—hadn't he been sat in a chair?—and wearily cracked open his eyes to stare up at a familiar face plastered with concern. "What—"

"You did it again," Ivan murmured, shifting to the side and laying his hands on Yuri's shoulders to help him upright. "Is this why you wanna check your record?"

He'd collapsed again? But the dream… it had seemed so real, though clearly it couldn't be; he was still in Ivan's workroom, still breathing and still very much alive. Ivan couldn't have been gone for long, though he had no way of confirming how long he'd been lying on the ground for.

He remembered that Ivan had asked a question, though when he spoke, his voice was hoarse and cracked, as if he'd been shouting. A quick brush of his fingertips across his cheek confirmed he'd been crying as well. He laced a shaking hand through his hair, heaved a trembling breath and tried to cast his mind back to the dream—nightmare, more like—but even though it had been so vivid only a moment ago, now he was only able to see a blurred shadow. "Something's wrong with me, Vanya…"

"I can see that." A groan escaped Ivan's lips despite his effort to stifle it. "Look, we’ll have to try something else. Nobody's talking to me." The hint of regret in his voice caught Yuri's attention, and his eyes widened as he turned to actually look at Ivan.

Whoever the boy had spoken to, whoever he'd seen, clearly hadn't taken too kindly to Ivan's prying. A thick, raw graze ran across his right cheek, a collision with the stone floor, most likely, and even though Ivan was trying to be discrete about it, Yuri easily noticed how one hand was clenched tightly across his stomach.

He wanted to ask what had happened, ask who had beaten him, but there was a steely determination in Ivan's eyes and the line of his jaw that effectively strangled the question in Yuri's throat, guilt wrapping so tightly around it—Ivan had gone on his behalf, after all—Yuri had to cough sharply to restore his voice.

Looking at Ivan's face, his swollen cheek and the smallest trace of blood at the corner of his mouth, Yuri's mind was instantly flooded with images from his dream. Images of Kai lying battered and bruised behind the bars of a dirty cell, of the armed guards and the scientists in their lab coats, of his own limp body being dragged out into the corridor as he watched on… and why did he feel as though he should recognise that voice?

"Do you know how to get to the science lab?" Yuri wasn’t even aware he’d opened his mouth until Ivan shot him a questioning glance.

Ivan shrugged, smothering a wince as the motion jostled the injuries Yuri couldn't see. "Course, we ended up there after—"

"No, I mean the _other_ one." The one that every boy in the Abbey feared, and rightly so. The one that had been Boris' home for an entire year and that had nearly destroyed him.

"I—" Curiosity exploded into doubt and confusion on Ivan's face, and he spluttered over his next words, hesitating for a second. "Well, yeah, but…"

"Can you show me?" Yuri asked, becoming desperate when Ivan opened his mouth to refuse. "Don't question me, Vanya, please. Not now." Yuri couldn't recall ever going to the depths of the Abbey before, certainly not to _that_ place, yet the voice he'd heard in his head had sounded so familiar and the cells had seemed so real and vivid—he couldn't possibly have known what the corridors had looked like without having been there himself, could he?

Either that or his exhaustion was finally making him delusional.

Ivan sat on the floor at Yuri's side, crossing his legs with a muffled grunt. He spared a glance under the collar of his shirt, most likely to inspect his injuries, before giving a heavy sigh and tilting his head back to frown up at the ceiling. "Why do I get the feeling I’m not gonna like this?"

"You don't have to come with me, just show me where to go." Taking in the look of reluctant agreement on the boy's face, Yuri wasn't quite sure whether he felt relieved or afraid.

The smallest smirk curled Ivan's lips, though he held a rueful look in his eyes that betrayed his real emotion. "You really think I’m just gonna leave you down there by yourself? That place is scary as hell, captain. People go down there and don't come back out."

"If you’re trying to convince me to change my mind, it’s not going to work," Yuri said quietly, getting to his feet and brushing himself off. "Whatever's wrong with me, it's something to do with the lab."

Ivan rolled his head and cracked his neck, the sound of bone realigning disturbingly loud in the small room. "Fine, you're the boss. Come on." He gripped the back of Yuri's chair to pull himself up, free hand pressing against his stomach with a grimace.

When the boy's legs suddenly buckled beneath him, Yuri's hands shot out on instinct and wrapped firmly around Ivan's shoulders. _"_ Vanya, what—"

"Don't, Yura… just don't." Ivan's words were forced through his teeth, jaw clenched and face pinched with pain, but his voice was tinged with a threat and Yuri forced himself not to interfere. Ivan reassembled his blade with shaking hands, clicking Wyborg's chip into place before dropping him into his pocket, and managed to get to the door without assistance. "Let's go."

Their trek through the Abbey was slower than Yuri would have liked and, if anything, the pace was only worsening his anxiety. Ivan led the way, stumbling slightly over even the smallest of bumps in the stone floor, and Yuri constantly had to step back to avoid standing boy's heels. He frowned at Ivan's muffled murmurs of pain but said nothing, Ivan seemed capable of caring for himself and Yuri guessed he wouldn't appreciate being pitied.

He couldn't quite stop his mind from wondering who Ivan had upset; someone stronger than him, most likely, though he had seemed confident that whoever he was going to speak to would be willing to help. Perhaps he had assumed too much? Ivan was trusted to assist the engineers, trusted to access the Abbey's files, but Yuri knew there had to be a limit. Ivan might have pushed too far.

He'd lost his bearings a while ago, midway through twists and turns and countless stairwells as Ivan lead him deeper and deeper into the building. The boy had pulled a small torch from his belt as they reached an unlit tunnel with a low ceiling. Yuri folded his arms across his chest, ignoring the twinge of pain from his wound and wishing he had his jacket. They must have descended quite far underground now as he could almost imagine ice forming beneath his feet.

"I hope you know what you're doing." Ivan's whispers echoed off the walls, turning his voice into an eerie growl.

Yuri swallowed, still fighting against the same tingle of anxiety that had been tightening its hold ever since his surreal dream. "So do I."

Ivan paused to glance over his shoulder and shone the torch up into Yuri's face. A long, awkward silence stretched between them, broken by the dripping of old water pipes and the scuttling claws of rats they could hear but not see. Yuri squinted at the boy in front of him, picking up on the hesitation in his expression and posture and urged him to continue.

They stopped again by a heavy metal door, old and rusting. "That leads down to the cells. The actual lab is a bit further on."

"Thank you." Yuri took a deep breath, closing his eyes and trying to force everything else from his mind. Something was telling him he would find answers here, he was almost certain, but he still felt apprehensive, almost as if he didn't _want_ to know the answer behind all the secrecy.

Ivan called out to him just as he laid his hand on the cold door, his voice strained. "Wait… don't go."

"I need to." Yuri cleared his throat in an attempt to get rid of the pleading tone from his words. "Someone's hiding something from me, Vanya. I need to find out what it is."

"No, I know that, I mean don’t go in that way,” he explained, swallowing thickly as he leaned up against a wall. His fingers twisted in the front of his shirt. "The guards down there… they aren't like the usual guards. I've heard they're armed, for a start. If they saw you—"

The guards in his dream had held pistols, where they the same? Had he heard about them before or was it just coincidence that he’d dreamt about it? It didn’t put him off. "Then what? What do you suggest I do?"

Ivan hesitated for a second, glancing along the wall to his left and pointing to rusting metal grate a few inches from the ground. Yuri was already dreading his suggestion before the boy opened his mouth. "That. It’ll be a squeeze—" His gaze raked over Yuri's body with a slight frown. "But you're skinny so we’ll be alright."

He wasn't in a position to argue no matter how much he wanted to—Ivan was obviously in no fit state to be crawling through air vents—but if he was correct about the armed guards standing watch on the other side of the door then Yuri didn't have much choice. Ivan crouched by the wall, set his launcher on the floor and drew a twisted metal screwdriver from the inside of his boot. Yuri hovered awkwardly as the boy fumbled with the screws holding the grate in place, every slip accompanied by a muttered curse.

"This is gonna take a minute. Go back down there and keep an eye out, would you?" Ivan asked, pointing back in the direction they had walked without looking up at him. He clamped the torch between his teeth, focusing back on the grate.

Yuri nodded mutely, returning to the end of the corridor whilst still staying close enough to watch Ivan from the corner of his eye. He stared out into the darkness, wishing they'd bought a second torch for him to use himself and wishing his imagination would stop replaying scenes from his dream. Ivan's muffled whispers reached his ears; he couldn't hear anything else but the scuttling rats, half expecting one of the armed guards to appear from the shadows at any moment. Looking back, the metal door to the cells loomed over Ivan, taunting Yuri with just how close he was to finding answers.

He let out a shuddering breath as Ivan signalled to him that he'd finished, slowly easing the grate free of the wall. Yuri swallowed his fear; turning back was no longer an option.


	19. Chapter 19

Yuri stood in front of what was now a small hole in the wall, suddenly feeling absurdly nervous. He wanted to do this, _needed_ to do this, so why was he finding it so difficult? Ivan signalled for him to duck in first, and after a moment of hesitation, Yuri dropped to his knees and pulled himself into the vent.

Ivan took a deep breath before following him in, Yuri assumed it was a means to lessen the pain of his injuries, and the boy braced a hand on Yuri's shoulder to push him a little further down the tunnel and give himself more space to move around. He watched as Ivan zipped the screws into a pouch on his belt, reaching back out into the corridor to pick up his launcher and laying it just inside the hole they had crawled through. He pulled the grate up last, lining it up with the edges of the tunnel and—after another deep breath—twisted it sharply at an angle, jamming it in place so that from the outside, nothing would look amiss.

Ivan's hands fell on his shoulders again, pushing him aside and squeezing past with a hiss. He set the torch upright between them and Yuri had to squint as it flashed in his face.

The light burned through his eyelids and for a moment he could see only an eerie red. He heard Ivan shuffling around in front of him and cautiously stole a glance, shielding his face with his fingers. Ivan had a folded sheet of paper in one hand and a roll of tape in the other, pinching the torch between his knees as he tried—without success—to tape the sheet over the light. Yuri took pity on him, reached out to hold the paper in place and wondered what else Ivan usually carried around with him.

The light was dimmed to the point they could barely see an arm's length ahead, but if it meant they were less likely to give themselves away, Yuri wasn't going to argue. Another strip of tape attached the torch to the back of Ivan's hand, and he cast questioning eyes to Yuri through the gloom. Yuri nodded once, and Ivan started to lead him on a slow crawl on all-fours through the vent.

"Where does this lead to?" Yuri whispered after a moment, as loud as he dared. He'd barely heard his own voice, but the echo seemed as deafening as a firework.

"Should bring us on top of the cells."

Yuri frowned at the almost instant reply, as if the boy hadn't even had to think about his answer. As if he knew the tunnels around the Abbey off by heart. "Vanya, how do you know all this?"

"I'm psychic." There was a hint of humour in Ivan's response that seemed entirely inappropriate. Yuri momentarily forgot their unspoken pledge of near-silence and scoffed, quickly covering his mouth with his hand as if it would undo his mistake. Nothing happened, and he released the breath he hadn't realised he was holding.

"I'm being serious," he continued quietly, "how does someone like you manage to learn so much about this place without being caught?" It made no sense at all. Ivan was barely in his teens, and yet he knew more than any of the other boys Yuri had ever spoken to. Yuri had been Valkov's favourite since before he'd even known the man existed, he was the captain of the main team, ranked first over every other blader in the Abbey, and yet here he was, following a boy barely taller than his elbow through a damp air vent because he had been unable to solve his own problems.

Ivan didn't pause, didn't even glance around to look at him or acknowledge the question, so Yuri elaborated, fighting to keep his annoyance at bay and his voice low. "Being able to do all those things on your laptop, getting through the Abbey's security as if it doesn't exist, being so involved with the design team and the engineers, knowing about all these tunnels even though they aren't actually recorded anywhere… how can you be so _involved_ and yet I only heard of you when you made the main team?"

"Because I learnt the hard way to keep my head down," Ivan said, muffling a groan. Yuri saw him shake his head. "I topped my training group when I was eight, but instead of taking me away and putting me on a different programme like he was meant to, Valkov just shoved me in another group with the older boys."

Yuri's eyes widened in surprise; Ivan was a skilled beyblader, he'd seen that himself, but to top his group at only eight years old was almost remarkable. It seemed to have become standard procedure for the top bladers in the younger groups to be pulled out and placed on specific, personalised training regimes—it was how Valkov ensured he only focused on the best, after all—so for Ivan to simply be placed into another group was strange. "What happened?"

"They ripped me apart," Ivan admitted, a soft chuckle escaping his lips. "But, because I helped them with their blading and made them better—which made Valkov happier—they started to let me in on a few secrets."

"Like these tunnels?" He must have found out about them from somewhere, as far as Yuri knew there really were no records of the shortcuts Ivan seemed so familiar with.

Ivan hummed, shrugging awkwardly in the small space whilst trying to keep his balance. "Not exactly. But I worked out pretty quick that knowing stuff like this is worth a lot, so I tried to find out as much as I could. You probably know how nasty it can get in those groups. I wasn't gonna be the scrawny little baby who got his head kicked in again, so I got myself something to bargain with."

It was the same all over the world, Yuri guessed; anything could be bought if the price was right. And for the boys in the Abbey, the favoured currency was information.

Yuri's left arm snagged and he paused, the bandage over his wound had come loose at wrist and tangled around a nail in a vent panel. Ivan turned around at his grumbled curse with a raised eyebrow, lifting his hand to direct the dulled torch light at Yuri's wrist so he could pick the threads free.

He pretended not to notice the way Ivan used the brief moment of rest to carefully feel along his ribcage with his fingers. If Ivan found anything unusual he didn't show it, only gave an impatient sigh before they started shuffling deeper into the tunnel.

A mocking face appeared in Yuri's mind, completely unwanted, though Yuri couldn't help but wonder. "Vanya, why are you afraid of Vladislav? Was he in your group?" It was the wrong thing to ask, he should have realised that before he spoke, as Ivan suddenly stopped moving and drew a sharp, pained breath. From his reaction alone, it wasn't too difficult to piece everything together; Yuri knew how the Abbey worked. "He's the one that did this to you."

It wasn't a question, didn't need to be; Ivan's lack of response quickly confirmed Yuri's suspicions. The reason Ivan had warned him to stay away from the boy was because he'd been at Vladislav's mercy himself, because he still was.

Ivan glanced back over his shoulder, pain and a hint of fear clearly evident in his eyes, and he hadn't even bothered to try and mask it. To anyone else, the notion probably wouldn't have meant a thing, but to Yuri, it proved just how much Ivan trusted him.

"Don't get involved." Ivan's voice was little more than a cracked whisper, his tone practically begging. Had he been hearing it from anyone else, Yuri would have felt sickened. The only thing he felt for Ivan was concern. "I know you've helped other boys before, but I've got this."

Yuri's breath hitched at his words, hands balling into fists as he watched Ivan retreat further down the vent. Surely Ivan couldn't have known about Anton Vitaliev, about the other boys, about _that_ room… Ivan had no reason to know. "What do you mean?"

Turning slightly, his face briefly drawn in a wince, Ivan caught Yuri's eyes in a steady gaze; analysing, searching for any sign of deceit. "The floor above yours, isn’t it? That's where you go."

He tried feigning ignorance, even though he knew he'd hesitated too long for Ivan to be fooled. "I've never—"

"Captain, _Yura_ …" Ivan cut him off, raising a hand to silence the protest on his tongue. "Look, I'm doing this because I want to, alright? You don't have to repay me for it."

Just like that, Yuri felt as if his body had turned to water, sagging against the side of the vent and staring down at his hands. It was almost disappointing, in a way, to know that his help wasn't wanted. The more he thought about it, the more Yuri realised that Ivan had done so much for him over the past few months, and that he had done very little himself in return.

Yuri wasn't strong like Sergei, he didn't invoke fear to the extent that Boris did, but he had managed to capture the reluctant respect of the other boys, and even after the finals, still seemed to hold a certain amount of power over them. He couldn't offer protection, but he could set things up to get rid of the source of pain; Piotr had asked and Yuri had provided, and he wasn't the first. But Ivan didn't seem to want anything from him at all and his selflessness felt strangely foreign. "Well, if you say so."

"Thanks," Ivan murmured, a flicker of a smile flashing briefly across his lips before he twisted away and resumed their crawl. "I'll admit, you're not actually half as bad as everyone makes you out to be."

"They talk about me?" Yuri was stunned, suddenly overcome with curiosity and wanting to know everything that had been said, not necessarily complimentary from the sound of it.

"Are you joking?" Ivan snickered before it was swallowed up with a barely stifled cough. "Course they do. Everyone knows you, captain, everyone wants to _be_ you."

Yuri was about to speak again, to point out that he really wasn't worth anything now that he'd lost his status with Valkov, when Ivan shot his hand out to cover his mouth, pressing a finger to his own lips to silence him.

"This is it," Ivan whispered, so quiet that Yuri struggled to hear, he shifted a little further ahead and signalled to the slatted grate below their hands.

Ever so slowly, Yuri crept to the very edge of it and peered down into the darkness. He recognised the corridor almost immediately and, without thinking, pressed his head down against the metal to get a better view of the cells. Ivan huffed but said nothing, messily grabbing at Yuri's hair and holding it back from the grate. Of course, if someone passed by and bothered to look up they would clearly spot the fiery-red strands dangling from the ceiling and know instantly that something was going on.

Near the end of the corridor, furthest from the double doors that Yuri guessed led to the lab itself, two guards stood just outside one of the cells. Ivan was right, they were both armed. He couldn't quite get a good glimpse of their faces, but something in the back of Yuri's mind hinted that they were both familiar, that he'd seen them before. In his dream, perhaps? Though surely that was impossible; he must have seen them beforehand, how else could he have dreamt of them?

Shaking his head, he pulled back, settling on his aching knees in the cramped vent as an idea came to mind. He crooked his finger at Ivan, waiting until the boy had leaned forwards enough that Yuri's lips brushed his ear. "Does this tunnel go over the lab itself?"

Ivan drew back and nodded slowly, shooting Yuri a confused glance. He mouthed the word 'why', though Yuri merely shook his head again. Now wasn't the best time to explain.

The walls of the vent expanded ever so slightly the further they moved, giving Yuri a little more space to breathe. He'd been trying to stamp down on his claustrophobia with limited success ever since he'd crawled into the tunnel, the only thing keeping it from bubbling over was the desire to find answers, the quiet voice at the back of his mind that told him he would find them in the lab.

After only a few minutes, the vent broke into two, one to the left and another to the right. Ivan paused to get his bearings, eventually settling for turning right. Unfortunately for Yuri, the next section was even narrower than before, and he was almost forced to pull himself along on his stomach to squeeze through it.

The soft clink of metal on metal stopped them both dead, eyes wide, listening intently for any sign they had been noticed. Ivan exhaled slowly, shooting Yuri an annoyed glare over his shoulder and nodding his head at Yuri's waist. Yuri glanced down, almost relieved to see that the noise was merely his launcher grazing the walls of the vent.

He mouthed an apology to Ivan, wishing he had left his launcher at the entrance as Ivan had, and instead had to improvise; he settled for slowly unwinding his belt from his trousers and looping it around his chest under his shirt. The metal was cold against his skin but he shoved the feeling to the back of his mind, signalling for Ivan to move again once he was certain his launcher was secure.

Rounding a corner, Yuri saw light spilling up from another grate and knew they were above one of the lab rooms. He paused when Ivan held up a hand, nodding to confirm he understood his gesture of silence. Ever so slowly they crept closer to the light, the soft murmur of voices becoming louder the closer they got, until Yuri could clearly make out actual words. He fisted his hand in his hair to keep it from dangling through the thin slats, and cautiously peered into the room below.

"Do you think the new kid they brought down will be able to take it?" The voice was male, younger than he expected, and ever so slightly arrogant. After a few seconds of staring down at nothing but stone paved floor and the corner of a computer console, a dark haired man in a white coat wheeled his chair right underneath the grate. If he looked up…

"What do _you_ think? You've seen him, right? Thin as a twig." The second voice was older and definitely familiar, Yuri realised it was the same voice he'd heard in his dream, that voice that had urged him to wake up. He swallowed hard, twisting his head uncomfortably to try to get a glimpse of the speaker, but he was stood completely out of sight.

"So was Ivanov."

His eyes flew wide, breath clogging in his throat. Ivan's hand gripped his shoulder and squeezed. He _had_ been here before, he must have been, they had mentioned his name—no, they had mentioned his _last_ name. 'Ivanov' was common, they could have been referring to anyone; Yuri didn't want to guess how many boys in the Abbey shared the same last name as him.

"True. But you know why the Director chose him; the boss had him trained specifically for this."

But if they _were_ referring to him… how had the Director been involved? As far as Yuri was aware, all Kai's grandfather was responsible for was injecting money into the company and judging Valkov's results.

"I guess so. Do you know if it even worked?" the younger man asked. Yuri watched him lean casually back in his chair, crossing his arms as if he were discussing something boring and unimportant.

A pair of feet and the hem of a lab coat appeared in the corner of Yuri's vision. "Almost, it kicked in during the finals, apparently. Wasn't enough though, the boss was furious."

"I suppose they'll bring him back in then."

He prayed they wouldn't, Yuri never wanted to come near this place again. He was certain they were talking about him now; talking about the finals. Whatever it was that had 'kicked in', Yuri knew it had caused his blackout during his match.

"I doubt it"—the older man gave a weary sigh—"he's too old now, and if we run him through it again he'll probably end up with permanent brain damage."

Yuri clamped his hand over his mouth, biting into his palm to stop a strangled gasp from escaping, Ivan's fingers clenched impossibly tight around his shoulder. He heard the other boy's breath hitch, felt him lean a little closer to get a better look through the grate.

The young man scoffed and anger writhed under Yuri's skin. "If he’s not got it already."

Brain damage? Was that what they were hiding from him? Was it… was it _serious_?

"Watch what you're saying, Sidorov. It doesn't matter what he's got; as soon as the funding comes through the boss will get rid of him anyway."

Yuri jerked away from the grate, yanking himself from Ivan's grip and flailing in the cramped space, he needed to turn around, he needed to _get out_.

Brain damage. Whatever they'd done to him had given him _brain damage_. And the man on the chair—Sidorov—had spoken about it as if it were nothing. Images flooded his mind, the dream he'd had, the dark cells, the dripping pipe always behind him on the left, he could _remember it_. And the cruel voice, the older scientist, he couldn't picture a face but he knew the man had been there.

A test, an experiment the Director had selected him for, the specialist training he'd been given to prepare him for it, all for what? What were they trying to achieve? A soldier that collapsed without warning wasn't worth anything to anyone, but then he could still _move_ even when he was supposedly out cold. Was that what they were aiming for?

_I guess it's time to wake up, Yuri Ivanov. Let's see how long you last._

But they'd failed. _He'd_ failed. And Valkov was going to get rid of him.

A sharp crash pierced his ears and he wanted to yell, wanted to scream or cry or do _something_ because he didn't— _couldn't_ —believe that they had been talking about him, but before he'd even fully opened his mouth, a pair of hands slammed down and sealed it shut.

Yuri stared up, eyes wide with alarm as he took in Ivan's furious expression. The torched shone in his eyes but he barely noticed. His launcher dug into his ribcage but he barely noticed. His ears still rang with the echo of metal on metal, the clang of the vent panels smashing against each other, and he realised slowly, _stupidly_ , that he'd been the one to make the noise. That he'd probably attracted the attention of the scientists. That he'd probably given both Ivan and himself away.

He held his breath, never breaking eye contact with the boy straddling his waist, both of them squashed together in the tunnel, and forced himself to listen to the room below.

Sidorov was the first to react, his voice cautious. "What was that?"

"It's probably rats." The reply was bland and disinterested, the tiniest hint of relief glowing in Yuri's mind; the older man seemed to be the more senior of the two, so if he wasn't disturbed by the noise, they still had a chance.

"Must be really big rats to make that much noise. It sounds like someone's up there." The sound of footsteps filtered up through the grate, Yuri assumed Sidorov had got to his feet and was staring up at where they were lying.

"In the vents? Are you joking?"

"I really think it should be checked…"

He was still staring straight at Ivan whose own eyes were screwed up in a pained grimace, his shirt had snagged on Yuri’s launcher and revealed a purpling bruise across his chest. Yuri couldn't tell who was trembling more, Ivan or himself.

"You do? Well _you_ can be the one that bothers the guards outside then."

The guards. They'd forgotten about the guards—if they were caught now—the guards couldn't fit into the vent, that was certain, so… would they wait for them to reappear through the grate and out into the corridor?

"But—"

"Enough, Sidorov. I'll deal with the noise, _you_ stop talking and get back to work; we need this finished by tomorrow."

Would they pull the trigger the moment they appeared, or would they drag it out? Make an example of them? Report them to Valkov and have _him_ deal with their disobedience?

"Yes sir."

"If they go up there and find nothing, I'll recommend to Levitsky that they use _you_ for target practice."

The older man didn't seem to think they would hesitate to fire.

If he had a choice, he would rather take the bullet to the head before he even realised it was about to happen. He would rather it were over and done with quickly.

"Wait, sir—"

If nothing else, it would save Valkov the trouble of getting rid of him.

Yuri's miserable whisper was drowned by the bang of a heavy door and the rattling vent panels. " _Sorry Vanya_ …"


	20. Chapter 20

"Yura? Are you…" Ivan's voice was muted, as if he was whispering from the other side of a thick door. He may as well have been, Yuri had no idea where he was.

The inky blackness in his mind lifted, just a fraction, and a hazy, warped image of Ivan's workroom swam into view; table slanted at a sharp angle, the chair and Ivan's laptop doubled when he tried to focus on them. The boy crouched in front of him, looked just as distorted as everything else, his mouth moving out of sync with his words.

"How am I meant to tell if you're awake or not?" he murmured. A blurry hand pressed against Yuri's forehead, an action he could see but not really feel, nothing more than faint warmth against his skin.

He tried to open his mouth, to tell Ivan that he was awake now and ask how they'd managed to get out, as the last thing he could recall was lying in the damp vent, frozen with dread at the thought of facing whoever they would meet back in the corridor.

A breath escaped his lips but nothing more.

He couldn't really make out Ivan's features, but it was clear from the way he sat back, wringing his hands in front of him, that he was concerned, afraid even. Yuri wanted to comfort him, to reassure him that everything was fine, that _they_ were fine—because as far as he could tell, they were safe—but he couldn't string the words together.

Ivan rose and disappeared from sight and Yuri realised he had lost his peripheral vision. He tried to turn his head to watch the younger boy, could hear him moving around somewhere to his right, but his body was entirely numb.

Letting his eyes fall shut, Yuri forced himself to recall the vent, Ivan's quiet story about his first few years at the Abbey, the conversation they had overheard… it wasn't without a rising sense of fear that he remembered what the scientists below them had been talking about.

He figured it must have happened again, another blackout. It was the only plausible reason for the gap in his memory, between closing his eyes as he thought about the guards armed with pistols—about the distinct possibility of death—and opening them again to see he was back in the West wing.

But there was no way Ivan would have been able to get him out of the vent by himself, he barely had enough space to manoeuvre his own body, let alone drag Yuri's along with him. There was no way Ivan would have even had the strength to pull him along; he was light, yes, but Ivan was so much smaller than him that the idea seemed almost laughable.

The smallest chuckle brushed over his lips, instantly bringing Ivan back to him, his hand waving close enough to Yuri's face that he could feel the breeze it created.

"Would you just say something already?" Ivan asked, the desperation in his tone was noticeable, as was the frustration. "I know you can hear me, at least I _think_ you can…"

He tried a nod but couldn't tell if he'd managed it or not. His fingers twitched against stone—cold and rough, he could feel that—and he guessed he was sat on the ground. Awkwardly slumped, in fact, if the small twinges of pain shooting across his shoulders were any indication.

"Look, if you can hear me, you’ve got five minutes. If you haven’t moved or talked or done _something_ by then, I'm getting help,” Ivan said in an anxious rush. Yuri thought he should have felt at least a small inkling of fear at the thought of Ivan getting someone else involved, but he could only feel a flutter of something he couldn't quite identify in his heart. "This is crazy, Yura. You're starting to _scare_ me."

Whether it was the rising panic in Ivan's voice—the admission he shouldn't have uttered—or the panic that suddenly tightened in his chest as a result that finally roused him, he wasn't sure. Whatever it was, it was enough to force words from his mouth in a dry, cracked whisper. "What happened?"

Ivan recoiled as if he hadn't been expecting Yuri to speak at all. "No idea… you just phased out and started crawling away,” he explained, swallowing hard before he continued with a little more vigour. "I nearly couldn't keep up; you found your way back here without even stopping."

Yuri's mind flickered back into focus, recalling the strange seconds of awareness he'd had before the world disappeared again, dipping in and out of consciousness. The dark vent, lit from behind by Ivan's dimmed torch, the surreal experience of watching his own hands drag him forwards but not feeling the action, the corridor they'd come through, completely void of anyone but themselves, no guards, nothing. Ivan's concerned whispers as the boy ran in front of him, flailing his arms, trying to catch his attention before Yuri's body—still not in his control—walked right past him.

"Were you talking to me?" He remembered tiny snippets of Ivan's voice, the odd word, half a sentence, but couldn't understand them, couldn't remember responding.

"Tried to. You wouldn't listen." Ivan shook his head, lowering himself to the floor at Yuri's side and gingerly folding his arms across his stomach. For a split-second Yuri wanted to ask how his injuries were, where he'd picked them up, until the sneering face of Vladislav appeared in his mind and he brushed the thought away. "Weird as it sounds, it was like you were sleepwalking or something. Had your eyes open, though."

Sleepwalking? Yuri had heard of it, seen it—Boris had fallen prey to it once or twice when he was younger—but he didn't think it was an apt description of what he was doing. In order to be sleepwalking he would have had to have been asleep, something Yuri had given up on entirely. He wasn't asleep when his body started to act on its own accord, he was unconscious; to Yuri there was a very distinct difference.

Even though it wasn't the first time it had happened, it suddenly occurred to Yuri that it was the first time someone had been _with_ him when it happened. Thinking about it from Ivan's point of view, watching himself deliberately march his way back to the workroom without once deviating or even acknowledging Ivan's presence, he couldn't blame the boy for being at least a little frightened.

"It's happened before. I blacked out for no apparent reason and came around somewhere completely different."

Ivan glanced up at that, eyes wide. He mouthed a hundred jumbled questions without making a sound before his jaw clenched shut. A beat passed, Ivan held his breath for a long moment. "How—is that even possible?"

"I know it sounds strange, Vanya, I do..." Yuri interrupted, leaning his head back against the wall behind him and sighing. "I think, whatever it is, I think it's something those scientists have done. Some sort of experiment."

"Experiment…" He cracked open his eyes just in time to catch something grim and terrified and _furious_ flash across Ivan’s eyes—wasn’t sure if he’d imagined the burst of red that accompanied it—but it was gone in a blink. Ivan looked up at him, seeming utterly perplexed. Yuri wondered just how deep Ivan’s knowledge of the Abbey went, or whether, for all Ivan knew about the hidden corridors around the building, for all he was allowed unsupervised access to the engineering block and their personal files, he was still completely naïve about the darker side of the Abbey. About what really happened behind its closed doors, about the experiments Yuri had heard rumours about but never known he'd been involved in.

Until now.

He hoped, for Ivan’s sake, it was the latter.

Those two terrifying words, spoken in a bored, disinterested tone by a man who was far too casual, sparked at the front of his mind again. _Brain damage_. The phrase and all its possible implications hammered on his skull in a heavy, endless beat, so much so that Yuri felt the bone might crack from the pressure. He knew what it meant, of course he did—uttered far too often by the guards who removed the unconscious failures from intense training sessions—but to know that he himself was suffering from it was almost heart-wrenching.

"Vanya,” he murmured quietly, yanking the younger boy from his thoughts. "You heard what they said about me, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I was right next to you," Ivan blurted, pausing to compose himself and lowering his eyes, staring down at his hands. "I don't believe it though; I mean, if you really had—if it’s really as bad as it sounds—then shouldn’t you be locked in the medical ward right now?" There was something in the boy's voice that suddenly reminded Yuri of just how _young_ Ivan was. They may only have been two years apart, but there was a silent, hopeful plea in Ivan's tone that made the boy sound innocent, almost childlike.

And Yuri wasn't so sure Ivan was right. Whatever they had done to him down in the lab, whatever sickening experiment he'd been involved in, it seemed to have worked. He could still move even when he was unconscious and, even more worrying, was able to find his way through corridors he didn't recognise with little effort. He'd just proved the fact right in front of Ivan's eyes.

It wasn't that he doubted what the scientists had said, after all, they'd had no idea they were being watched so surely had no reason to lie, but equally there was no way Yuri could just accept their words without learning more. He didn't think Ivan was right about him being confined to the medical ward, but he didn't necessarily think he was _wrong_ either. If the damage caused by the experiment had been severe, then surely there was no way he would be allowed to roam the Abbey, surely he wouldn't have been put through a full examination and given a code nine.

Either his condition was stable and not worth their concern, or their refusal to treat him was all part of the test. The thought sent an unwanted shiver through Yuri's spine; surely the Abbey's doctors weren't _that_ twisted as to allow someone in such a potentially bad state to walk away without treatment.

As soon as he was able to stand and walk the length of the room without stumbling, disguising the way his legs still trembled with slow, deliberate steps, Yuri blinked away the remnants of haze from his eyes and made the decision to return to his room. Ivan was hesitant to let him go so soon—he didn't voice it directly, instead running with weak excuses and lies that Yuri saw straight through—but it was clear from the way he hovered by and blocked the door, his hand clenched tightly around the handle. Yuri insisted that he was tired and needed to sleep, though he knew that he couldn't get any further from the truth; how could he sleep after what he'd just overheard? No, he needed to be alone, needed the space to process what he'd learnt and think about his next move.

And Ivan, realising his attempts at stalling Yuri were falling on deaf ears, stood aside with his head bowed and watched him leave without another word.

Just as Yuri set his foot on the final flight of stairs to his room and his rebellious thoughts turned to Kai and the promise of escape, a boy unexpectedly crashed into his back and nearly sent him flying over the handrail. After a hurried explanation that Vasily was in the training centre, Yuri sprinted back down the stairwell he'd just climbed up before the boy had even finished.

Because there was only one reason he ever really spoke to Vasily, and if there was anything Yuri wanted at that moment, anything he wished for, it was to receive even the smallest shred of good news from Kai.

He found Vasily in a room at the end of the main corridor, tucked away in a corner so tightly that it would have been easy to overlook, and took a moment to calm his rapidly beating heart and catch his breath. He couldn't help the tiny smile that curled his lips as he watched the people inside through the wall length window.

The room held only very basic machinery and a single battle dish, where Vasily stood poised to launch in front of a group of five younger boys, one of whom stood forward to challenge him. Yuri watched from outside as the other boys crowded around their friend, faces beaming with encouragement. They couldn't have been older than eight at the most, still eager to cheer for each other, still innocent enough to feel compassion.

Nostalgia rose like bile in Yuri's throat, effectively crushing what little happiness the scene had filled him with. When Yuri had turned eight, both he and Boris had been at the Abbey for almost a full year, and had already learnt that survival meant praying that your opponents would fail. After all, if someone held a knife to your throat, you wouldn't cheer them on.

Vasily caught his eye through the window and crooked a finger to beckon him in. Yuri didn't miss the way the younger boys' eyes lit up as he softly eased the door shut behind him, settling back against it to watch the match. Vasily had to order his challenger to focus, apparently distracted by Yuri's arrival.

As expected, Vasily's launch was virtually perfect; his blade landing smoothly at the rim of the dish before following the downward curve of the bowl to increase his speed and power. The boy he faced was less successful; his grip far too loose, stance too tight, wrist tilted at the wrong angle, so much so that Yuri knew his blade—designed for endurance, he guessed—would wobble on the landing before he'd even pulled the ripcord.

But Vasily seemed impressed by the boy's effort, and Yuri wondered whether judging the boy based on his own skill when he was the same age was really an accurate comparison, considering he knew nothing about him.

He blocked out the loud calls of praise from the boy's friends, something that seemed too out of place in the training facility, and distracted himself with the screens behind the divide. The computers were outdated, certainly not to the same specification as those the technicians used in Yuri's own training sessions, but Vasily had managed to link in the camera in the little room to catch a recording and pulled up statistics for the boys he was teaching.

Glancing briefly at the information in front of him, he realised that he had not only been correct about the boys' ages, but also the type of blade Vasily's current opponent was using. Watching the scales dance before him in all the wrong directions, Yuri couldn't help but feel a little irritated; there was nothing he knew better than how to battle with an endurance type, and the boy—Yakov, according to the data—was getting everything wrong.

Needless to say, when Yakov's blade fell to a very basic but flawlessly executed attack from Vasily, Yuri was unsurprised.

An idea spawned in his mind and he barely spared his next action a second thought when he stepped up to Vasily's side and folded his arms over his chest. Perhaps, by helping Vasily with the younger boys, he could repay Vasily for helping him contact Kai. A small step, but a forward facing one none-the-less. He waited until Yakov had collected his fallen blade before he spoke. "You're favouring power over accuracy far too much."

Yakov jerked around to stare at him so quickly that he lost his balance and slid back down to the bottom of the dish, beyblade clenched tightly in his hand. "I am?" Was the flash of fear he'd seen a result of being picked up on his mistake, or directed was it at Yuri himself?

Shaking his head, Yuri crossed to the opposite side of the room and waited until the boy had clambered up next to him to snatch the ripcord from his hand. Without even asking for permission, Yuri immediately began to bend and flatten the final three teeth on the cord using the edge of the boy's launcher. He'd been doing the same to his own for a year, if not longer, until the design team had finally realised he was doing it on purpose and had started to provide him with cords with fewer teeth. In the beginning it had helped immensely in controlling his launch power and keeping his aim steady, two things the boy in front of him desperately needed.

Yakov watched intently without saying a single word and his friends crowded behind his back, eyes wide with awe as they whispered quietly to each other. Yuri forced himself not to notice the admiration in their voices, the way they cooed his name and recounted his achievements, the way they spoke as if he were some sort of celebrity.

Because he wasn't, not anymore.

He made the mistake of glancing up as he handed the altered cord back to Yakov and let him reload his blade, catching Vasily's sly, knowing smirk from the other side of the dish and scoffing in response. Vasily hadn't said anything, but Yuri had heard him regardless.

Vasily chuckled and shook his head. "You don't usually want to work with the younger boys, Yura. What changed your mind?"

"I came here to talk to you." It didn't really explain why he was wasting time trying to help improve Yakov's blading style—though somehow it didn't seem like a waste—but Yuri had figured that Vasily had been the one to send for him and so must have had something important to tell. It didn't look as though he would be saying anything until he was done with his teaching session.

Yuri stepped in again just as Yakov moved up to the edge of the bowl and held his launcher out before him. "Your stance is wrong," he murmured, giving a frustrated sigh when the boy merely gave him a confused look. "The basic purpose of an endurance blade is to outlast your opponent, yes?"

"I know that, but I gotta attack them as well, don't I?" Yakov insisted, brow knotted in a frown.

"Unless your launch is perfect, you won't last long enough to attack anything," Yuri explained, briefly wondering whether the Abbey's basic training programme had become slack over the last few years, as he was certain the principle of having a perfect launch was one of the first things he'd been taught. "Think of your blade as the predator and your opponent as the prey. You want to lie low and watch, completely still and completely silent, you only strike when they make a mistake. You need to keep your blade spinning for long enough to wait for that mistake, and to do _that_ , your launch needs to be perfect."

Yakov's expression softened, lips drawn in a childish pout as he considered Yuri's words. It almost looked as if he were close to a moment of realisation when his frown returned full-force and arrogance swirled in his eyes. "Show me how you do it then."

"You want me to _show_ you?" If it wasn't for the expectant look on the boy's face, Yuri would have thought he was joking.

But Yakov merely nodded, holding out his launcher to Yuri, his blade still in the lock. Yuri hesitated for a split second before taking it from the boy's hands. Yet another basic principle Yakov seemed to have missed out on; trusting another person with your blade was like trusting them with your life.

Standing at the edge of the dish, eyes locked on the central point at the base, Yuri forced himself to forget everything else. He focused only on the blade in the lock, the tenseness of every muscle in his body and the feel of cold, smooth metal against the palm of his hand. Just himself and his imaginary opponent.

 _Breathe_.

A bright thought danced in the blankness of his mind and he smiled; he lived for this, and despite Biovolt, despite Valkov and despite the damned Abbey, he would have been a liar if he claimed not to enjoy it.

He could still feel Wolborg's presence; couldn't feel her bristling with anticipation as usual, but even though he wasn't working with his own blade, he still felt the familiar rush of power racing through his veins.

Arms raised, feet spread wide, Yuri fired Yakov's smaller, lighter blade with as much strength as he dared. It landed precisely where he had aimed for, span one quick, tight circle before settling in the middle. Perfectly balanced, silent and waiting, just as he'd practised time and time again.

A chorus of appreciation rose behind him and even Vasily cocked an eyebrow in surprise. He allowed himself a smug grin as he dropped the launcher back into Yakov's hands, the boy immediately sliding into the bowl to collect his blade. He returned and stood in a slightly sloppier imitation of Yuri's pose at the edge of the dish, though Yuri was too distracted by Vasily's muted attempt at a compliment to watch the boy's next launch.

"Not bad, considering you're using substandard equipment."

"The best blader is always perfect no matter what equipment he's using," he replied automatically.

Vasily gave a low whistle and moved to the door, resting his fingers on the handle as he waited for Yuri to catch up. "Perfect this, perfect that… you're starting to sound just like Valkov,” he whispered as he followed Yuri out, nearly walking straight into his back when Yuri froze suddenly in the corridor. "That was a joke, Yura. Come on."

Yuri followed the older boy into a room even smaller than the one they had just left. One of the two spotlights in the ceiling was broken, and the remaining bulb was doing a very poor job of illuminating the space. There was no glass divide, no computer station, only a worn and deeply scratched metal dish that was covered by a thin layer of dust. Clearly the room wasn't used much.

"Let me see your launcher," Vasily demanded, perching on the edge of the bowl and letting his legs dangle in the dust.

Yuri narrowed his eyes at the strange request. "Why?"

"Something I want to add to it, that's all." The older boy glanced up at him with a knowing smile, holding out his hand and stretching his fingers. Yuri saw nothing dishonest in Vasily's eyes, though was still somewhat reluctant when he handed over his launcher.

Yuri watched as Vasily expertly peeled the rubber off the grip—and the black electrical tape Yuri had used to repair it—and with the same hand wrapped a small square of paper around the metal before taping the rubber over the top.

“Don’t look at it unless you’re absolutely desperate,” Vasily murmured vaguely as Yuri clipped his launcher back onto his belt, elaborating when he caught the confused glance Yuri sent him. "There’s a name written on it. If you’re stuck and you can’t find me or Seriy, you find them.”

“Who is it?”

Vasily drew a deep breath and sighed. “Can’t say. You’ll work it out if you have to, just don’t ever mention it to anyone.” He splayed his hands behind him and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. “Sorry I wasn't in my room that night. Seriy said you were looking for me."

It took a moment for Yuri's mind to register which night Vasily was referring to, still caught up in trying to work out who the mystery person was, a myriad of dangerous scenarios running through his mind—what exactly did Vasily think might happen to him? "I went up to fifth. One of the boys there—"

"Viktor?" Vasily asked, a chuckle escaping his lips as Yuri nodded. "His roommate's terrifying, isn't he?"

Terrifying was an understatement; the 'boy' who had answered the door was a monstrosity. Yuri's next words fell from his lips before he could reign them in. "How does it work? Does Viktor report to you, or—"

"I've got no idea what you're talking about," Vasily interrupted sharply, the harsh tone of his voice and steely look in his eyes informing Yuri that he really _shouldn't_ have opened his mouth. Vasily knew exactly what he was asking, of course he did, but he clearly wasn't willing to talk about it.

Realising he had unintentionally cut their conversation short and inwardly cursing his curiosity, Yuri took his leave. He was almost through the door when Vasily called out to him again.

"Is everything alright, Yuri?" The boy had his back to him and his voice sounded oddly strained for such a harmless question.

Though perhaps, in Yuri's case, it was far from harmless.

Yuri lied and hoped Vasily wouldn't pick him up on it. "Everything's fine. Why wouldn't it be?" Aside from the risk surrounding his letters to Kai, the fact that Valkov was still dangling Boris' life in front of him and the possibility he may have permanent brain damage as a result of the Abbey's experiments, that is.

"Just asking." Vasily shrugged nonchalantly, standing and brushing the dirt and dust from his legs. He made his way to Yuri's side and pushed his hands into his pockets. "Seriy worries about you, that's all. I know he rarely shows it, but he does worry."

"He has no reason to." Yuri hadn't intended to sound as ungrateful and irritated as he had done, he was sure that if it wasn't for Sergei's constant support he would have struggled to get so far, but all he wanted to do was go back to his room and Vasily's questions were standing in his way.

Vasily's gaze locked with his own and Yuri couldn't help but feel the boy was searching for something Yuri didn't want him to find. "If something _was_ wrong, you'd tell him, wouldn't you?"

"Of course I would," he said, far too quickly to be an honest answer. He may as well have scribbled the word 'liar' on his forehead; knew without a doubt that Vasily could see straight through him. Vasily's uncanny ability to instantly spot deceit was almost on a par with Sergei's.

"Of course you would…" Vasily repeated slowly, stopping by the long window of the training room and pausing to watch the younger boys practice. He sighed, jammed his foot against the door and dismissed Yuri with a jerk of his head. "You should go back, it's nearly curfew."

Yuri merely nodded in agreement, murmuring a quick goodbye as he turned on his heel and walked away. He didn't look back, but he could have sworn he felt Vasily's eyes follow him the entire length of the corridor. He didn't hear a door open until he had turned a corner and was out of sight.


	21. Chapter 21

The scientists in the lab said he had brain damage.

The doctors in the medical ward said he was perfectly healthy.

He couldn't sleep despite being exhausted, he'd collapsed more than once when he wasn't even doing anything remotely strenuous, he was suffering bizarre, delusional dreams, and he could carry on walking even when he was completely unconscious.

The scientists or the doctors; Yuri knew who he was more inclined to believe.

Ivan had been the one to go and ask questions as Yuri was still in slight denial. They'd both heard of brain damage before, of course, weren't completely ignorant, but when Ivan had nervously relayed to him that it could be permanent, could have varying symptoms and side-effects, and that it could potentially be fatal, he'd been shocked to absolute silence.

The following morning, after their escape from the cramped vents that Yuri still had no real recollection of, he'd completely missed the final wake-up call and had been dragged down to his training room in his sleepwear by Levitsky, a full half an hour after he should have arrived. He broke no records, achieved none of his targets and fell so short of the demanding standards that even his technician took pity on him and fiddled the numbers to make his poor results seem a lot less severe.

His performance was even more appalling the following day, and the technician's generosity didn't last.

Yuri spent four nights and five days locked in isolation as punishment for what Valkov had cruelly referred to as a 'disgusting display of rebellion'. Almost as if the man didn't think he'd been trying, as if he couldn't see just how close Yuri was to breaking down.

He was completely alone, nothing in the darkness to distract his mind from the thoughts that had plagued him constantly since Ivan had shown him to the lab. Food and water arrived twice a day on a small tray through a narrow hatch set in the bottom of the cell door. The bathroom became the corner furthest from where he sat, not that it made much difference.

He handled the first night well, screamed until his throat was sore as he pounded the door until his fists bled on the second and cried himself into a fitful sleep on the third.

By the fourth night, Yuri had convinced himself that he was going to die.

Brain damage. Permanent, irreversible and beyond his control. What a terrible way to go.

On the fifth day, sat in silence, arms hugging his knees to his chest as he ignored the meal pushed under the door, Yuri remembered that he wasn't the only one who'd been experimented on in the lab. He'd read the other boy's file, knew the horrors he'd gone through, so if _he_ could survive, could push on and pretend nothing had happened, why couldn't Yuri?

He needed answers, whether Boris was willing to give them or not.

He was freed an hour after curfew, taken straight to the communal shower and for once, didn't have the energy to protest or even to feel embarrassed when he was washed by someone else's hands. The first place he went after being deposited wordlessly in his room was straight back into the corridor, down the stairs to the second floor and into room 212.

Boris was wide awake, waiting for him, had been waiting for days. Neither of them spoke—Yuri's determination to ask questions had vanished the instant Boris pulled him close—and he didn't let go of Boris' hand until the last possible moment, until he'd followed him out into the corridor the next morning and they risked being seen by a patrolling guard.

He got a reply from Kai a day later; a small, tattered envelope—the same one they'd used since the first letter—pressed into his palm as Vasily offered to take his untouched breakfast tray in the food hall.

But even the paper crumpled in his hand did little to alleviate his pain. Even if breaking in to Valkov's office had been a success, even if Kai had all he needed and could free them from the Abbey, there was nothing he could do to fix whatever damage had been done to him.

Nothing _anyone_ could do.

* * *

He'd been lying in silence in Boris' room for nearly two hours, had turned up after finishing his training for the day—only just scraping through—and hadn't even bothered to knock, just let himself in and immediately crawled into Boris' bunk. Danil was out, Yuri didn't care enough to ask where, and it wasn't long before Boris lay down next to him.

"You're quiet." Boris' voice was a muffled whisper that barely brushed his ears.

Yuri didn't respond, his mind drowning in thoughts of experiment he could barely recall being involved in, of Ivan and his willingness to help Yuri without expecting anything in return, of what he'd read about Boris' training and the fact that the boy seemed determined to forget about it.

Thoughts of his bunk and his pillow and the last message he had received from Kai that was hidden in the stuffing. The message had been rushed; Kai hadn't sent him any blank sheets of paper, didn't expect—or didn't _need_ —a response, hadn't even signed his name anywhere. Just a single word, 'wait', etched on the inside of the envelope itself in sloppy script.

But that had been nearly a month ago, and Yuri hadn't seen or heard anything from him since. Nothing had changed at the Abbey, if anything, training had become harder, they were pushed further, Valkov had only become angrier; especially as Yuri only seemed capable of failing.

And he was still no closer to finding out what was truly wrong with him.

What little free time he did have was spent locked up in his own fragmented memories—vivid dreams that he was no longer convinced were merely his imagination—and lying prone on Boris' bunk, wishing his friend could just flick a switch and everything would go back to how it once was. Before Kai, before the Bladebreakers and the tournament final, before… the ghost of a memory shimmered at the very back of his mind; a smile, soft laughter, a mother and father that looked happy. And he had so many questions he wanted to ask her.

But he didn't want _that_ back—though the realisation scared him a little—because to have that back would have meant no pickpocketing in Saint Petersburg, no breathless, triumphant laughter over a stolen loaf of bread, no passing the time by playing games with a few dropped coins. To go back to that memory, an infant with a loving family and everything to live for, would have meant never meeting Boris.

There was a rustle of movement behind him, the mattress dipping as Boris turned onto his back, and his elbow dug into Yuri's spine. "We're getting too big for this, don't you think? We're not seven anymore." The forced humour in the boy's voice didn't fool either of them.

Boris sighed heavily, seemingly irritated with lack of conversation, and pushed himself to his feet. Yuri continued to lie on his side, staring at the wall and seeing nothing. He felt so tired, his eyelids were heavy and he barely had the energy to breathe, let alone move. Yet he couldn't sleep because all he could think were countless, _useless_ , 'what ifs'. His fingers curled a little tighter in Boris' sheets, ever so slowly pulling them up to his ears and wanting to do nothing more than to hide away from everything.

Thinking about Boris reminded him of what he'd read in the boy's file. Everything about the training Boris seemed to want to forget, to pretend never actually happened. But it _had_ happened, and there was no way it could not have affected him. The damage it had caused to his sight—Yuri couldn't be sure that the surgery that followed had completely rectified that damage—and the scars that would probably never fade, Boris had to live with the physical reminders of that year every single day. Yuri didn't even want to think about the harm it must have caused to Boris' mind.

He wanted to ask so desperately, to give Boris the chance to talk about it and to let it out, to understand what he'd gone through and learn how he'd managed to survive it in the hopes that it would help himself as well, but he knew his friend never utter a word. Boris was too proud to admit that he was suffering, for surely he _was_ , too wound up in appearing strong to admit that he'd been hurt. He'd been the same way even before the Abbey, when Yuri had met him on the streets. If Boris was ever afraid or in pain, he became angry and let nobody come close to him. Even Yuri, who Boris himself had said was his closest friend, realised now that he knew a lot less about the other boy than he had originally assumed.

If he asked about the training, anything specific, it would mean revealing that he had read Boris' file, there was no other way he could have found out the actual details without Boris actually giving him information. Yuri knew Boris wouldn't take kindly to him having read anything. He knew too much, more than Boris would probably ever admit to him for the rest of his life, and he wasn't sure whether the thought was comforting or not.

Yuri heard water splash into the basin and the sound of Boris gulping it down and spitting it out again. Heard a shuddered breath before something heavy and metallic smashed into the wall just above Yuri's hip and Boris swore quietly. Yuri flinched at the impact, glancing down and not at all surprised to see the boy's launcher lying on top of the sheets.

" _Damn it_ , Yura," Boris said, "I know you're awake. Just—hell—this is _ridiculous_." A strained, pitiful bark of laughter tore from his throat.

Yuri closed his eyes for a long moment and sighed, rolling onto his back and collecting Boris' launcher from the bunk. He held it up above his face, poised to launch, though the grip didn't sit right in his fingers and felt odd. Yuri was used to his own right-handed launcher, free to pull the ripcord with his left, a clever play-off of balance and accuracy against strength. Wolborg landed exactly where Yuri wished her to land, and never once wobbled. Power could be built up afterwards and released exactly when needed.

Boris was the exact opposite, pulling the ripcord with his right—his dominant hand—gave him a huge boost to his power straight off the mark, the disadvantage of lost accuracy was unimportant in comparison as it only made his launch unpredictable to his opponent. The first round in his match against Rei Kon was a prime example of that. Not that Yuri was surprised; Valkov obsessed over even the smallest details and didn't stop with just blade design alone, hours' worth of launch practice and perfection made up a significant part of their training.

Misled soldiers thrust into a regime that threatened to destroy them, preparing for a war they wanted no part of. At six years old he'd had something to live for, they all had, but the moment every boy set foot in the Abbey that 'something' disappeared altogether.

He was glancing over the scratches and dents in the metal casing of Boris' launcher when the boy himself suddenly grabbed hold of Yuri by his collar and yanked him upright, dragging him to the edge of the bed. Yuri squirmed, one leg curled uncomfortably beneath him.

"Sorry, Borya…" he murmured, meaning it with every ounce of sincerity and hoping it would at least placate some of the rage he could see writhing under his friend's skin. Amongst many other things, Boris didn't cope well with being ignored.

Boris crouched on the floor and folded his arms across Yuri's knees, catching Yuri's gaze and holding it for a long, tense moment. "I don't get what's wrong with you. Sometimes I feel like I don't even know you anymore." His whispered admission was enough to make Yuri's breath catch in his throat. Boris held up a hand to silence Yuri when he opened his mouth, giving Yuri the impression that he needed to say what he was thinking before he lost the confidence to do so. "Ever since the finals, you've been too quiet, you're always lost in thought, you barely talk to me, actually it feels like you're trying to _avoid_ me. It's like part of you got left in the stadium, Yura, and I—I can't—" His mouth snapped shut abruptly, jaw clenched.

Closing his eyes to block out Boris' pained expression, Yuri forced himself to speak even though his mouth was dry. "Can you blame me?"

There was so much more he wanted to say; painful admissions and secrets he should never have known poised on the very tip of his tongue. He wanted to spill all of it, tell everything in one careless, damning, _desperate_ whisper, but he couldn't. He knew that if he did, that if Boris knew the truth, then the boy would be just as guilty as Ivan and himself. If everything he had managed to achieve went up in smoke, Boris would carry equal blame. He couldn't risk that.

"No." Boris sighed, standing up and taking his launcher from Yuri's slackened grip. "No I can't."

Yuri opened his eyes at the rustle of clothing to see that Boris was pulling on his training uniform over the top of his sleepwear, briefly glancing out of his window as he dressed.

"Let's go outside," Boris said, yanking on his gloves and coat and zipping it up to his neck.

Yuri tilted his head slightly, confused by the boy's sudden change of mood more than anything. "Why? It's nearly dark."

"Still have a few hours before curfew." Boris held his hand out to Yuri and helped him up before moving to the door. "Come on, you always used to drag _me_ out, remember?"

Yuri remembered vividly how Boris would complain about going outside for nearly a full five minutes before he would finally relent. There was something about the stillness and silence that accompanied the snow on the Abbey grounds that had always made Yuri feel relaxed, so pure and forgiving in comparison to the four stone walls that surrounded them. Perhaps that was what he needed right now, perhaps that was why Boris had suggested it.

They made a brief stop on the third floor, just long enough for Yuri to run into his room to change into something warmer and slip his hand into his pillow when Boris wasn't looking to check his letters were still safe. Boris made a dry comment that they could probably get away without their coats as they would be used to the cold inside the Abbey, and Yuri couldn't agree more.

Boris kicked at the snow as they walked a slow lap around the building, and Yuri was content to just to let him talk; the stupid mistakes he'd made during training, the conversations he'd overheard between the other boys, the ridiculous stories they'd been telling that in the past would have made Yuri laugh. He tried to listen, tried to find some comfort in Boris' jeering humour, but instead found himself staring out mournfully at the darkening landscape beyond the high iron fence that surrounded the grounds. Kai was on the other side.

They'd wandered to the paved area that extended beyond the back wall of the Abbey and Boris moved to stand near one of the dishes filled with the least snow. "One last go for fun?" he asked, one hand already resting on his launcher clip.

His words stuck in Yuri's mind, something not quite making sense. "Last go?"

"Haven't you heard?" Boris frowned, his hand falling back to his side.

Hadn't he heard what? Yuri had once prided himself on knowing everything about everyone at the Abbey, every rumour filtered past his ears at least once, every secret ever spoken, every high and low, he knew who had potential and who risked disappearing. Yet somehow something had slipped by him without his notice, and he wondered whether he had really been so preoccupied with his thoughts that he'd missed something important about his friend.

Boris caught onto his confusion easily enough. "I'm off the team," he explained, though Yuri already knew that, had already guessed it from the moment the boy had lost in the championship. But there was something else, something Boris didn't want to tell him.

"Just because you're off the team doesn't mean we can't battle once in a while, Borya. I'd be surprised if Valkov doesn't replace _me_ in the next tournament." His disastrous performance as of late was surely enough of a reason. If he was being brutally honest, Yuri had expected to be told he was no longer part of Valkov's front line when he'd been shouted at after his own match. The team roster changed so often, and for Yuri to have been a part of it for two years in a row was quite an achievement, only Sergei held a longer record.

Boris chewed his lip and stared hard at the floor. "Well, yeah, but it's not just that," he said quietly, forcing his hands into his pockets in a futile attempt to stop them shaking. Yuri noticed. "He wants me off for good. Probably gonna send me back to the labs, if he doesn't just throw me out the door that is."

" _What_?" Yuri couldn't help the high-pitched squeak that escaped his lips. Boris had been one of Valkov's most promising test subjects; before the championship the man had only the highest praise for what he deemed to be the science team's most successful experiments. And having been through the records, Yuri now understood why.

He'd been a trial in creating the most perfect soldier and Valkov's plan had almost worked, having Boris watch his trainer _die_ was testament to his success. Until a week after his intense year away when Yuri had turned up outside Boris' room and crawled into his bunk with him. Yuri's mere presence seemed to be enough to snap him out of the trance he was in. Only now did Yuri realise just how _important_ it had been for Boris to see him, to once again be with someone comforting and familiar. After all, he'd done exactly the same when he'd been released from isolation.

If putting him back in the labs meant putting him back through the same horrifying process he had been through already, Yuri wasn't sure whether Boris was strong enough to survive it again. Wasn't really sure whether _he_ was strong enough to put his friend back together afterwards. Not now, not knowing what he'd been put through himself, what he was suffering from. He couldn't help someone else when he could barely help himself.

Boris shrugged. "I'm just going by what I've heard, but I know he wasn't happy when he found out the effects of my training weren't permanent. Hoping I can avoid the labs at least."

Something clicked in Yuri's mind. " _That's_ why you've been working so hard, isn't it? To try and prove you're still worth keeping?"

As Boris ducked his head in acknowledgement, Yuri recalled the night he'd first asked Ivan for his help, when he'd watched Boris' recent practice footage over Ivan's shoulder and had thought his friend seemed subdued. He understood now that Boris had probably been distracted by the harrowing prospect of being submitted to a scientist's dubious experiments yet again.

But then, if Valkov was considering getting rid of Boris because the tests and training he'd been through had failed… did the same apply to him? Did Valkov wish to get rid of him because whatever they'd done to him, whatever they'd tried to do to his head hadn't worked? Yuri could only wish, only _hope_.

He glanced over at the other boy, a small smile curling his lips at the fact that Boris had already set Falborg in his launcher and was ready to start, even though Yuri hadn't actually agreed to anything. Boris knew him too well; knew he wouldn't turn down the opportunity of a match, no matter how exhausted he felt. Yuri more than welcomed the chance to take his mind off his thoughts. Ivan was right; battling against a real person was very different to the mechanical launchers in the training centre.

"You might have a chance at winning this one, Yura," Boris teased, smirking, "you've got a pretty unfair advantage."

Yuri looked over the dish again and decided that Boris was definitely right. He'd spent a lot of time spinning Wolborg through practice circuits in the snow around the Abbey, and it was an environment that Wolborg herself felt the most at ease in. He made a mental note to keep an eye out for any tricks Boris might play in order to melt the snow in the dish, already knowing that the boy would try to use Falborg's ability to become airborne to counteract Yuri's advantage.

Yuri locked Wolborg into place, feeling that same, comforting weight that told him she was close. He closed his eyes, focused on the cold around him and steadied his breathing, willing everything else from his mind and blocking it out. Quiet, calm, immersing himself in the moment; only Wolborg and the dish and the desire to win. Just his blade, his opponent and himself, the only things that mattered.

Blading really had become second nature to him.

"What's the score now?" he asked. He remembered it clearly enough, he just liked to remind Boris of who was in the lead, and by a good margin.

"Nine-five to you," Boris muttered, "not including the time you almost took my head off."

"By accident." A faint grimace washed over Yuri's face at the memory. He'd been infuriated in one of their previous friendly matches when his older blade had been horribly outdone by Falborg's recent upgrade. The boy hadn't even bothered to tell him about the improvements until halfway through the match, content to let him simmer and squirm until his anger reached boiling point. Once he'd found out the reason he'd barely been able to make a scratch on Falborg's surface, Yuri had been so incensed that he'd lost control of Wolborg, and in her berserk state she'd managed to carve a massive metal chunk from the obstacle dish they were battling in, torn Falborg's new design into two clean halves with it and had knocked Boris out cold.

Understandably, Boris had refused to accept it as a win on Yuri's part, sparking a heated debate between them. Boris' main argument had been that losing control as Yuri had in a _real_ match situation would most likely have led to disqualification. Yuri had countered that in a real match, the result was still decided according to which blade was still spinning in the dish in the end, which in that particular case had been Wolborg. Eventually Yuri had caved, albeit reluctantly, secretly glad that Boris had managed to walk away relatively unscathed afterwards.

He may have been a poor loser, but he wasn't heartless. Boris didn't deserve that.

They counted down together, launching in perfect synchrony. Already, Falborg was on the assault, charging relentlessly around the very top of the dish and Yuri could feel a sharp wind picking up around them. Wolborg dove straight into the cover the snow provided, settling in the middle with a deceptively low spin speed. Boris was too smart to be fooled by the bluff and wouldn't walk into the trap, he knew Yuri far too well for that, but it gave Yuri a chance to start conserving his energy which was exactly what he was aiming for.

Boris narrowed his eyes, just a tiny fraction, and a gale burst from the dish as Falborg jerked away from his circle and drove straight for Wolborg. The top layer of snow was whipped up in the wind, spiralling in the small tornado Boris' speed generated between them and clearing the path for Falborg to travel with a little more ease. The blades collided, sparks flying into the air, and Falborg surged forward again and again; his trademark ruthless slamming attack that Yuri had expected and already accounted for.

The remaining snow in the dish froze solid almost instantly as Wolborg worked her magic and shielded Yuri's blade with thick ice, pushing Falborg high up the curve of the bowl to avoid being caught.

"You're as predictable as always, Borya," Yuri said, daring to glance up and chuckling at the irritation twisting Boris' expression. He wasn't mad enough to try and run his blade across the ice, knew that he'd probably end up spinning himself out before he even landed another hit on Wolborg.

Boris frowned at him; Yuri could almost hear the cogs clicking in his friend's mind as he reworked his strategy. He smiled suddenly. "Am I?"

Before the words even left his mouth, Falborg launched from the rim of the dish and high into the air. Light sparked around Boris' blade, and even from far below, Yuri could see that he had immensely increased his speed. Yuri knew what he was aiming to do; he couldn't get at Yuri by working in the dish itself, so he'd try from the sky.

 _Predictable_.

Falborg surged downward, tilted completely on his side to reduce air resistance and increase his velocity even further, and was aiming straight for the bit-chip on Yuri's blade. Destroy that, and he ruined Yuri's chances of calling Wolborg up. Yuri sighed and shook his head, part of him had hoped for a more exciting match than theirs was turning out to be; he was looking forward to making his win count double-figures. Wolborg danced quick, wild circles across the ice, making her a nearly impossible target; there was no way Boris had time to adjust Falborg's direction now.

Just before impact, Falborg twisted upright, like a bird-of-prey swooping down with its talons raised, and the point of his base jammed into the ice. Without missing a beat, Boris called his bit-beast, a smirk on his lips as Falborg emerged from the resulting whirlwind and spread his wings. The wind grew fiercer, biting at Yuri's skin, churning snow from around them and yanking Yuri's hair from his collar, blowing it across his face. What the hell was Boris thinking?

A crack resounded from the base of the dish, and Yuri realised suddenly what Boris was looking to do. The ice Wolborg had created split and shattered, loose shards being swallowed up by the twister. Seeing that he'd made a slight miscalculation, Yuri summoned Wolborg and the two great beasts—the wolf and the falcon—surveyed each other from behind their masters.

With the ice gone, Falborg was free to resume his vicious attack, crashing in to Yuri's blade over and over and coming back even stronger after each and every rebound. Just as Falborg's talons tore into Wolborg, the splinters of ice caught in the storm bit though Yuri's clothes and nicked his skin, leaving thin, shallow scratches behind. Boris hadn't pulled his feared signature move, wasn't deliberately attacking Yuri himself, and for that he was quietly thankful.

Yuri hastily checked his options. The dish was clear of snow, Boris had effectively removed his chance of quickly covering it again with ice; not that Wolborg was incapable of doing so, but the amount of energy the move would require was enormous and not something he could afford to waste. He knew there would be no point in trying to lure Boris' into the grooves Wolborg left behind, not as deep as they would have been were the dish made of metal; the boy knew his style already and if he couldn't avoid the cracks, he would only take to the air again. Wolborg bayed and Yuri glanced up to see her hunched defensively, snarling at the falcon that soared high above her.

Perhaps he'd underestimated his friend's skill after all, but that was fine. Yuri still had one advantage he could play on; unlike Boris, Yuri was meticulous and thorough when it came to analysing his opponent's blading style, he'd watched so many recordings, read so many reports, and they'd battled so many times before that Yuri could practically recite every possible move running through Boris' mind from memory alone.

No, Boris may have rendered his usual strategy worthless, but he could still get the win. He was prepared for anything Boris could throw at him, and Yuri Ivanov was no quitter.


	22. Chapter 22

Throwing Wolborg into a full-on offence caused more trouble than it was worth; Boris had the decency to look a little shocked by the sudden switch, but the irritating smirk twisting his lips barely faded and he spared little time in matching Yuri's move. Sparks shot up as metal clashed against metal and the piercing noise echoed in his ears. The energy stored in Yuri's blade had driven his speed up to ridiculous levels, but Wolborg may as well have been lying still in comparison to the pale purple blur that was Falborg, spinning so quick that he almost flickered out of sight.

Even now Yuri could still distinctly remember laughing when Boris revealed the colour scheme for his new blade, despite his assurance that he'd chosen it as a means of deception and not because he was a fan of the peculiar shade. It worked, Yuri knew that, lulling Boris' opponents into a false sense of security; pastel lilac didn't exactly hint at danger.

His blade was suddenly shunted back across the bowl without warning as, taking advantage of Yuri's momentary distraction, Boris' upped the ante. The tornado doubled, so intense and so _sharp_ that Yuri was forced to crouch a little lower to the ground and shield his face with his arm as the strength of the wind threatened to literally throw him off his feet. Opposite him, Boris looked completely in his element, a fire Yuri hadn't seen for a long time dancing in his eyes.

Yuri forced Wolborg back into the centre of the dish, expending her remaining energy on staying grounded despite the gale surrounding her; the second she became airborne, he knew Boris would take the match. Falborg moved in lightning fast, circling around her at a furious speed. What happened next was something Yuri hadn't seen before and certainly hadn't considered.

The wind was suddenly drawn inward, as if Falborg had somehow created a second tornado within the first, and the air and snow around them collapsed and condensed into one singular, shining point just above Wolborg's chip.

When the point exploded, erupting into a thick column right above Yuri's blade, he didn't notice until Wolborg was a good few feet from the ground that she'd even been lifted into the air at all. It was as if Boris had managed to manipulate the twister itself; Yuri hadn't seen an actual hit, the twister had been powerful enough to actually suck Wolborg from the ground. He watched, utterly helpless and a little in awe, as his chances unravelled before his eyes.

Falborg shot across the dish, hurtling into the sky and zig-zagging through the air, smashing into Wolborg from every angle with unbelievable force, driving her back towards the ground at an impossible speed. Yuri's blade was heavier, wasn't designed to even consider going airborne, and there was little he could do to save her from falling.

Wolborg landed, wobbling dangerously on her base, and above him her aura shimmered and faded. Her balance was thrown, and though he couldn't see it clearly, Yuri knew Boris must have been able to at least chip something from her attack-ring. He could barely move her, and as Falborg descended again, the beast himself swooping down and swallowing up Boris' blade, Yuri half wanted to close his eyes.

But Boris' aim was off—he was diving straight for the rim of the dish—and the move made absolutely no sense whatsoever in Yuri's head until Falborg landed, shot straight down the curve of the bowl so fast that Yuri barely saw him and collided head-on, sending Wolborg ricocheting out of the dish from the impact.

There was a muffled thud as Yuri's blade landed in the snow a good distance away from them and his mind suddenly caught up with what had just happened. He supposed he should have been grateful Boris hadn't dived straight for the top of his blade as he surely would have cracked Wolborg in two, but his gratitude was smothered by annoyance at being beaten.

"Was that predictable enough for you, Yura?" Boris asked, barely able to conceal his excitement at having lessened the gap between them by another point. Yuri glanced up as the boy sauntered over to him and threw a friendly arm over his shoulders, flicking his hand in the direction of the dish. "Didn't you say once that the result was decided according to whoever was still spinning?" Falborg worked slow, lazy circles at the bottom of the dish, as if he had picked up on his owner's smugness was joining in the teasing.

Yuri wanted to turn around and knock the smarmy grin clean off Boris' face. He twisted, trying to jerk himself from the boy's tight grip, but Boris held on, locking his other arm around Yuri's shoulders and pulling him close. Yuri struggled weakly for a few seconds before he gave up, sagging against Boris' chest and giving a half-hearted groan.

"You must've cheated," he murmured irritably, voice muffled by Boris' shoulder, "there's no way _you_ could've improved that much in such a short time."

Boris snorted, resting his cheek just above Yuri's ear. "I'm taking that as a compliment even though I know it's not. I've been training hard."

"That was more than just training; I've not seen you attack like that before." Then again, he'd been far too preoccupied with everything else going on that he hadn't had time to watch Boris' training videos as he usually would.

"They tried something new in my last upgrade, didn't bother to tell me what." Boris shrugged, as oblivious as always when it came to the changes made by the design team. He'd made it perfectly clear in the past that he didn't care what they did to his blade, so long as they made him stronger, and they had eventually stopped trying to explain things to him. "The technicians were shocked when I finally managed to pull that move though, don't think they expected the upgrade to be _that_ good."

"I bet they were." Yuri could almost imagine it, the commotion Boris had likely caused; statistics jumping off the scales, technicians watching wide-eyed from behind the wall-to-wall protective glass of his training room; the one built specifically with Boris in mind after Valkov had first heard of his unique, dangerous skill.

The technician who had actually _discovered_ it—the one who had been standing to the side of the dish when Boris had first received Falborg, when he’d been unable to properly control his immense power and had him tearing through the room in a fear-fuelled rage—had been taken straight to the medical ward and nobody had seen him since. The new training room had been built the very next day.

"I beat your circuit record, by the way."

"Circuit record?" Yuri murmured wearily, Boris' voice seeming no louder than a whisper, as if he was talking from miles away.

"Took me a whole day. Only got it down by about 40 seconds, but I still beat it, even if I _did_ end up smashing through one of the walls by accident." He chuckled sheepishly, locking his fingers together behind Yuri's back. "You’ve never been any good at those circuits."

Yuri sighed, half-heartedly jabbing his friend in the ribs with his knuckles. "You know Wolborg's not designed for them. And a circuit win is nothing compared to—"

"Compared to a match result, so you keep saying," Boris interrupted, brushing away Yuri's excuse. His voice suddenly became serious. "I still don't see why they keep putting you through them."

A tremor ran through Yuri's spine and he felt Boris hold him a little tighter. He knew precisely why he was made to run the speed circuits; because Valkov had noticed how much he admired Boris. He wasn't going to admit that, however, the last thing he wanted was to set off Boris' anger, not now. "You know what it's like, Borya. They push us and push us until we can't go any further."

"And then they push some more. I know."

The warmth rolling from his friend's body and the fact that he felt so undeniably safe in his arms was almost lulling Yuri to sleep. He could feel his eyelids drop, suddenly more exhausted than he had ever been before, instinctively nestling his face between the ridiculous fur around Boris' collar and the crook of his neck until he could feel the steady beat of the boy's pulse against his cheek. Yuri was on the verge of falling asleep just standing there when Boris chuckled.

"I'm not carrying you back upstairs." Boris' breath tickled his ear and Yuri shivered, not entirely sure whether it was from the cold but not wanting to admit that it might have been anything else. There was a time and a place, and neither would ever be with Boris.

"Need to get my blade," Yuri murmured, sighing as Boris gently pushed him back onto his own two feet. He trudged through the snow to where he had seen Wolborg fall, but couldn't see her anywhere thanks to the dark.

The presence in his mind burned, and a faint blue light shimmered amongst the white, as if Wolborg were calling out to him. A question he'd originally wanted to ask Ivan popped up in his head as he dug through to his blade, drying her as best he could on his sleeve and running the tip of his thumb over the damage before slipping her into his pocket.

"Borya." Yuri turned to where Boris was clambering back out of the dish they had battled in, beyblade in hand. "Have you ever actually spoken to Falborg?"

Boris stared at Yuri as if he'd grown a second head, eyes squinting and nose scrunched up in confusion. "No. But sometimes I can tell what he's thinking, I guess. In here." He tapped the back of his head with his fingertips.

Yuri nodded, he understood the feeling. Ever since he'd been handed his bit-beast in the depths of the Abbey's training centre, Wolborg's presence had become a permanent feature in the back of his mind.

"Why?" Boris asked, pushing his hands into his pockets against the cold as he led Yuri back around to the main entrance.

"Something Vanya said to me, just made me wonder." Yuri tried to pass himself off as being no longer interested in the topic, Boris didn't buy it.

"Vanya? Who’s… you mean Ivan Papov?"

Yuri shrugged dismissively, realising too late that he had started a conversation he didn't want to be involved in. "He's in the West wing. He's short, was added to the team after—"

"I know who he is, Yura, I was there," Boris deadpanned, rolling his eyes, "don't know why you're talking to him though, from what I've heard he's nothing but a boot-licking, back-stabbing snake who wouldn't think twice about selling his own mother to get on Valkov's good side."

"You shouldn't believe everything you hear." Yuri couldn't keep the bitterness from his tone, hadn't even meant to say those words, but after everything he'd gone through with Ivan, everything the younger boy had done for him, he couldn't help but want to defend him. Almost an instinctive reaction, in fact.

Rumours spread like wildfire in the Abbey; Yuri had heard the same whispered stories that Boris had, but as he'd known next to nothing about Ivan until he'd been added to the main team, Yuri had barely paid any notice.

He knew full well that the boy was more than happy to lie and cheat and betray whoever he needed to betray in order to get what he needed, that much was true. But that was just the sort of world they lived in, and Ivan had given his word to Yuri's cause. The boy had undoubtedly saved his life, after all, had listened to him and showed Yuri things he shouldn't even have known about. The rumours were just that, useless accusations, nothing more. Ivan hadn't led him astray yet, Yuri didn't believe he would.

Boris sighed. "Since when have you ever…" He trailed off, giving up on whatever he was going to say when Yuri shot him a poignant glare.

They paused in the stairwell at the second floor, Boris catching Yuri's eyes and waiting for the slightest sign that Yuri wanted him to sleep in his room. Yuri stayed silent, turned his gaze to the floor and continued on the next flight, Boris easily picking up on his wordless request.

Yuri had already changed and was curling himself under his sheets when Boris crept into his room and eased the door shut. The boy stood still for a minute, seemingly undecided over where he wanted to sleep, before Yuri found the sheets from the bottom bunk thrown over his head. Without even thinking, Yuri folded both sets of sheets around himself. Boris rolled his eyes as he slid onto the bunk and settled on his side, back to back with Yuri.

He tried to sleep, lying perfectly still with his eyes shut, but the letters hidden in his pillow crinkled with every slight movement of his head and echoed in Yuri's ear. He hoped Boris hadn't picked up on the sound, a useless thought as the boy had already found out about his connection to Kai.

"Borya?" Yuri whispered, his voice sounding far too loud in the silence of the room. Boris gave a muted grumble in response and Yuri envied the fact that his friend was already teetering on the very edge of sleep. He made it seem so easy. "Do you remember what we said in Saint Petersburg—that we would always look out for each other?"

Wordlessly, Boris stretched his arm behind him and sought out Yuri's hand to lace their fingers together. He sighed quietly, murmuring something unintelligible into the pillow. Yuri glanced down at where their hands rested on his hip and smiled, the stirring of fear in his gut ebbing away slightly, replaced with confidence.

Boris may have been drifting, but sleep was still far away for Yuri, questions burning in his mind that he desperately wanted answers to. He coughed to clear the lump in his throat, couldn't help but feeling he was about to reveal a deep, dark secret. He couldn't tell what Boris' response might be and felt woefully unprepared. Yuri tried to keep his voice light, as if he were just asking something simple and insignificant. "Will you ever tell me what happened the year you were away?"

There was the smallest, tiniest hint of hesitation before Boris spoke, but Yuri caught it. "Probably not," he whispered. Before Yuri had even opened his mouth, Boris groaned, seeming to realise from experience that Yuri wasn't going to drop the subject without getting more information from him. "I just wanna forget about it."

"How can you?" Yuri asked, turning his head to glance at his friend over his shoulder. He was treading on thin ice and he knew it, but he kept pushing. "How can you just forget about _everything_ that happened to you?"

Yuri knew he wouldn't ever be able to forget what he'd heard about himself.

He felt Boris tense, the hand around his tightened. "Sounds like you know more than you should, Yura." Suspicion was tangled in the boy's voice, and Yuri remembered how quickly the rumours had spread when Boris was taken away, how they'd gone from being harmless to ridiculous within a matter of days, how pure speculation had become an almost undeniable truth and resulted in nearly every boy in the Abbey believing Boris to be a heartless killing machine.

Stories had built upon stories, expanding and exaggerating until it was impossible to pick out the facts from the myriad of lies surrounding them. Until everyone suspected that the only reason Boris had been sent down to the depths of the building was because that was where each and every past failure was locked away, and he'd been ordered to _dispose_ of them. His ability to forge a weapon out of thin air could easily be used to kill if he wanted it to be.

Yuri had never believed the rumours—his closest friend could certainly be ruthless, but he was no _murderer_ —instead he regarded them as absurd accusations born from the singular need of the boys around him to have something to focus on other than their own pain. Distraction was the best cure they had.

Boris had done little to allay the rumours when he had returned, seeming to actually _thrive_ on them, distraction coming into play yet again; it hid pain just as well as it pretended to cure it. Yuri was sure he had been the only one to see just how damaged Boris had been by the ordeal; watching him cast nervous, paranoid glances at nothing and everything when he thought nobody was looking, noticing his unease whenever he was in someone else's presence and his absolute lack of focus during training, eyes glazed over as if his mind were elsewhere. Feeling him jerk and twitch in his sleep, caught up in nightmares that he had never suffered from before.

But Boris had forced it all to the back of his mind, covered it over and pretended nothing had occurred in the first place, indirectly encouraging others to do the same. Before he'd read the boy's file, Yuri had been relatively concerned by his friend's apparent dismissal, yes, but not enough to push Boris into admitting anything. Now, however, having learnt what had actually happened and finally understanding the depth of Boris' torment, Yuri could almost picture Boris' thoughts festering and threatening to break apart unless he allowed himself to actually deal with them.

He felt Boris shifting behind him, more awake now that Yuri had caught his attention. "Why bring it up now?"

Yuri rolled over, wedging himself between Boris and the wall so that he didn’t have to strain his neck. Boris was lying on his back, scowling up at the ceiling. Yuri caught his eyes and sighed, he wasn’t going to appreciate what Yuri had to say next.

"I saw some files Valkov's office, managed to get in when he was away," Yuri said, refusing to meet Boris' hard stare. He wouldn't mention Ivan, if his plan failed he didn't want the younger boy caught up in the inevitable backlash. "One of them was yours."

Boris froze almost instantly, eyes locked on Yuri but not actually seeing him. One hand clenched painfully around Yuri's fingers, so tight he could almost feel bone scraping bone, and the other tangled in a fistful of bed sheet.

"Did you read it?" Boris' words were so quiet that even in the silence of the room Yuri strained to hear him, almost as if Boris didn't _want_ to be heard. There was something unsettling in his voice; Yuri expected the anger, but he certainly wasn't prepared for the _fear_. Not from Boris, _never_ from Boris; fear wasn't something he allowed himself to feel, let alone actually express.

Yuri could only nod in response, voice caught in his throat. The air between them felt thick and suffocating, pressing down around Yuri, until Boris suddenly relaxed and released the breath he'd been holding. He closed his eyes, and a small but genuine smile curled the corner of his lips.

"If you already know what happened, why bother asking?" Boris' eyes caught him again, sharp, bright and seeming more _alive_ than they had for years, as if a heavy weight had just been lifted from his mind. In a way, Yuri guessed it had.

"Because I want to hear it from you," Yuri said easily, Valkov's notes had only given one side of the story and it wasn't the side he cared about. Even though Boris hadn't actually _told_ him anything, and Yuri was under no impression that Boris was likely to do so any time soon, the mere fact that he had admitted that something _had_ happened during his isolated year of training was a great accomplishment to Yuri.

Yuri shifted, awkwardly turning over so that he was facing Boris and tucked his arm under his head. Boris took hold of his other hand almost immediately, which was slightly surprising; Yuri had expected his friend to get off his bunk and leave the room the very second he confessed to reading Boris' file, to invading his privacy. But Boris didn't even seem irritated.

He smiled, felt lighter than he had for a very long time. He moved again, fidgeting for a good minute and trying to get comfortable on the thin mattress before he eventually gave up. "You're right, we _are_ too big for this."

Boris snorted under his breath, squeezing Yuri's hand gently, and Yuri didn't need to say anything to confirm that their old promise to each other still stood.


	23. Chapter 23

Yuri growled in frustration as Wolborg literally bounced off Sergei's blade yet again, he'd lost track of how long he'd been stood rigid, staring at Seaborg in the middle of the dish with unblinking eyes, looking for even the slightest weakness in his impenetrable defence. He saw nothing, just as he'd seen nothing for the past however long they'd been training for.

"You're distracted," Sergei said, casting Yuri a critical glance, "maybe we should break."

Yuri waved his concern away with a flick of his hand. "We'll stop when I'm ready to stop. I just need to—" Something snagged in the corner of his eye, what may well have been the smallest chink in Sergei's armour, and he urged Wolborg forward once more only to achieve the same disappointing result. Yuri threw his hands up in defeat. "Did they make your new blade out of rubber or something? This is ridiculous!"

Sergei shook his head, wordlessly holding his hand over the dish and catching his blade. Yuri had already forgotten that he'd ordered Sergei to continue their battle until he said otherwise, marching around the divide to scowl at the data spewing from the printer. It didn't make the slightest bit of sense; Seaborg was designed purely for defence, he knew that, but for Wolborg to not even be able to make a direct hit when her power was spiking above the charts… he was obviously missing something important, something that was probably staring him in the face.

Of course, it could have been Seaborg himself deflecting his attacks; Sergei's bit-beast was Valkov's first flawless creation and was undoubtedly the most powerful. But the amount of control Sergei would have had to exert over Seaborg in order to call on that power without even releasing him from his blade made the idea almost impossible, even _laughable_. Surely there was no way Sergei had improved to that extent?

Or had he been so caught up in his own problems that he'd not noticed everyone else surpassing him?

"You're distracted, Yura," Sergei repeated, stepping behind the glass and glancing at the monitors with only vague interest. He'd never been one to care about statistics, and so long as he kept winning—which he did—Valkov didn't seem too bothered about the numbers either. Sergei proved himself long ago to be the reliable one, Valkov's easy-win blader. No wonder he'd spent three years on the main team and was put first in the recent finals. No doubt he was going to be adding a fourth championship to his list of achievements later that year.

Yuri sagged forwards and rested his forehead on one of the screens, scowling at the blurry outline of a graph. "I'm just tired, that's all. I haven't slept well." If Sergei picked up on the lie—of course he did, he never missed a thing—he was considerate enough not to mention it.

A resounding crash echoed through the training centre and Yuri jerked upright, rushing to the door to stare out of the window and into the room opposite. Someone had just lost their match, quite spectacularly if the shattered metal that splayed in the air was any indication, and with a sharp gasp, Yuri realised he recognised the unfortunate boy's face.

There must have been a lot riding on the match, and Yuri stood rooted to the spot, utterly transfixed, as Piotr was hoisted roughly to his feet by two guards and dragged into the corridor, kicking and screaming curses. Yet another who had fallen short of Valkov's unforgiving targets, another victim of Biovolt's merciless regime. When Piotr accidentally caught his eye through the glass, his face twisted with fear, Yuri knew the boy would never sneak up to his room again.

And after what he had done to give Piotr the best chance; reluctantly paying a visit to the fourth floor, to _that_ room, even though he had known then that it was probably going to turn out to be a waste of time, Yuri couldn't help but feel sorry for the boy.

He heard Sergei moving behind him and tore his eyes away from the scene. Sergei hadn't even lifted his head to glance over, not the slightest bit curious. Yuri sighed, he didn't expect Sergei to act any other way. "You make it look so easy."

Sergei quirked an eyebrow at Yuri's ambiguous comment but said nothing.

"Doesn't it bother you? You helped Piotr before…" Yuri trailed off before he admitted anything, perching on the edge of the computer console and crossing his arms. He watched Sergei kneel down to deconstruct his launcher and check the internal mechanisms. " _Seriy_."

"You get used to it." Sergei's flat, disinterested tone caught Yuri off-guard. "I've been here longer than you, don't forget."

Yuri had never once liked the prospect of 'getting used to it'. It seemed so final, as if once you had accepted that something happened a certain way just because it _did_ , you would have no option to change your mind. Surely it would have made more sense for the boys falling below standard to have _more_ training?

"I can't imagine how he must have felt. After everything, knowing that was his last chance to prove himself and watching that chance crumble." Words tumbled from Yuri's lips before he could rein them in, and Sergei shot him a heated glare, effectively sealing his mouth shut.

"You've never been in that position, have you?" There was something secretive glimmering between Sergei's words that Yuri couldn't quite put his finger on. He wondered whether Sergei had been there in the past, been the boy about to disappear, but he couldn't bring himself to believe it; Sergei was far too strong for that.

He shook his head in response. He'd always been Valkov's favourite up until the finals—over four months ago now—and he'd always had every technician he worked with twisted around his little finger as they were always eager to report good news on his progress.

Sergei stood, Yuri took it as a signal they were leaving and made to follow, head bowed as he thought over just how little he really knew about his older friend; he didn't exactly talk about his past, after all. He walked straight into Sergei's solid body and glanced up in surprise.

"What's wrong?" he asked quietly. Sergei's eye twitched, lips drawn in a thin line. Yuri followed his gaze over his shoulder and gasped at the sight that greeted him.

Vasily was stood in the gap between the divide and the wall, he must have walked in through the other door, and was leaning heavily against the glass as he gulped in deep breaths. He looked haggard; skin sickly pale and littered with bruises, one arm holding the other tightly to his chest. Blood stained his sleeve. Yuri felt his stomach drop at how strained his voice sounded. "We need to talk. _Now_."

Sergei growled behind him. Yuri felt the vibration tingle up his spine, he hadn't realised he had taken a step backwards into the boy's chest. "Wait outside."

Confusion rattled in Yuri's mind as he waited for Vasily to move, still caught up in raking his eyes over the wounds on his face. It wasn't until Sergei muttered his name that Yuri realised he wasn't talking to Vasily at all. "Me? Why?"

"Don't ask questions, just do it." His voice had taken on such a dangerous tint, face twisted with grim fury, that Yuri all but ran from the training room.

He settled back against the wall outside and took a deep breath, pressing his hand to his mouth as he tried to piece together exactly what was going on with the two left inside. They were stood near the computer, so he couldn’t see either of them through the long window. Vasily looked a mess though; he'd obviously got into a fight with someone and it wasn't completely clear who had come off the victor. But even after seeing his friend in such a state, it hadn't been concern in Sergei's usually blank eyes, not at all; it had been pure, unreserved _anger_. At what? As much as Yuri knew he shouldn't get involved, he couldn't help but want to know exactly what Vasily had done to provoke such an unusual reaction from Sergei.

It didn't seem he would get a chance to ask, however, jumping when a crash echoed from the training room. Sergei appeared suddenly, slamming the door behind him and immediately shoving his hands into his pockets. If Yuri hadn't cast his eyes downward to avoid the boy's scowl, he probably wouldn't have noticed the flecks of blood staining his knuckles.

Sergei ordered him to follow and Yuri did so without protest; trailing behind like a scolded child even though he wasn't entirely sure what he had done wrong. He cast his eyes back down the corridor as they neared a corner, but didn't catch a glimpse of Vasily.

The temperature dropped and the lights became dimmer, but just as Yuri realised he had no idea where he'd been led to, Sergei's fist tangled in his collar and he was slammed hard against the wall.

Yuri screwed his eyes shut at the flare of pain in his skull. "Seriy, what—"

"What happened to Piotr's roommate, Yura? What have you been doing?"

Panic strangled whatever Yuri may have said, the reality of Sergei's question sinking into his mind. He'd been careful, done all he could to ensure that the boy's disappearance couldn't be linked back to him in any way. Surely Sergei must have known what would happen to Anton Vitaliev—why else would he have thrust Piotr into his care? Sergei had been the one to tell him about the fourth floor in the first place and, if anything, had actually _encouraged_ him to go there.

Apparently Sergei wasn't too impressed by his silence, and Yuri bit down on his lip to muffle a painful gasp as his head forcefully met the brickwork again.

"Listen to me very carefully." Sergei's voice had lowered to a threatening growl, words forced out between clenched teeth, and Yuri was suddenly gripped by hysteria, shocked and horrified by the rage in Sergei's eyes. "There are things you don't know about this place; things I've deliberately _not_ told you for the sake of keeping you safe. Whatever you've done, whatever you've been _trying_ to do, you've managed to upset all the wrong people. Either you explain exactly what you've been doing when you sneak out of your room at night, or god help you Yura, because I certainly can't." The fist in his collar pressed harder, biting into his throat, suffocating him.

"Seriy—" Yuri struggled, kicking out at Sergei's shins, nails clawing at his skin, the edges of his vision darkening as he sucked in short, rasping breaths. " _Can't breathe_ …"

He was caught in Sergei's tense gaze for a long moment, watching his friend's face blur and darken. Just as he started to believe that he was going to die at the boy's own hand, dread and panic and _fear_ clenching tightly around his heart, he was suddenly freed, dropping to his knees in a coughing, spluttering, sobbing heap on the floor. His chest ached, his lungs felt as though they were on fire, and Yuri yanked sharply on his collar, fingers scrabbling at his neck and the ghost of the pressure he could still feel there.

Someone was apologising, repeating the same words over and over in a pathetic, cracked whimper, and it was only when he was hoisted from the floor by rough hands that Yuri realised it was _his_ voice he could hear, suddenly sickened and repulsed by his own weakness.

Sergei held him against the wall again, leaning his full weight on his hands where they gripped Yuri's shoulders. Yuri could feel the stonework behind him biting into his skin through his jacket, but could barely focus enough to actually notice the pain.

"You'd better pray this can still be fixed," Sergei said, the words muffled in Yuri's ears, "I can't take the blame for you otherwise, not again."

There was little Yuri could do except slump to the floor and watch Sergei's retreating back as he walked away, leaving him huddled and confused and worn so thin from distress that he thought he might crack to pieces if he dared to move.

Fix what? What exactly had he done?

Piotr had made a cry for help and Yuri had done as many others had done before him. There was a reason everyone feared visiting that one room at the furthest end of the fourth floor corridor, the one hidden in darkness under the cracked hall light. The one where, if you looked close enough, you could probably _see_ the horrors dripping from it; the cruel whispers and ugly promises that passed over the threshold, pried from desperate, pleading lips.

But it wasn't just that. There was more behind Sergei's aggression, more he was referring to, but _what_? His letters to Kai? Breaking into Valkov's office to find their files? The secret visit he'd made to the lab with Ivan to find out what the Abbey was trying to hide? Surely Sergei wasn't heartless enough to blame him for wanting answers.

Yuri hadn't thought it was possible to ache as much as he did, every single fibre in this entire body burning when he so much as thought about trying to stand. He wanted to close his eyes but dread forced him to keep them open. The blackness creeping into his vision reminded him too much of his dreadful nightmares, the last thing he wanted was to collapse in the middle of the damp corridor, screaming aloud until he was found by one of the guards.

As much as he tried, desperate, bordering on fearful, he didn't have the energy to stay awake. A single thought flickered to life as he slipped away, so distant and faint that he may have just imagined it. Even though his delirious mind was probably coming up with ridiculous solutions to his problems just so he no longer had to worry, the idea seemed far too real to be a hallucination.

The lab didn't have the answers he needed, but Sergei did.

* * *

"Not again." A shocked voice crept into Yuri's mind, shaking him free of the dark void he'd fallen into. Familiar, though he was so unfocused that he couldn't quite place it. "Yura? Say something, damn it!"

“Vanya?”

Yuri blinked open his eyes, taking in the boy's hunched form before him, and managed a small, grim smile that he knew wasn't as reassuring as he'd wanted it to be.

"You look dead…" Ivan trailed off, drawing back unpleasant memories in Yuri's mind of Sergei's hand at his throat, pressing, suffocating. He coughed abruptly, startling Ivan whose hand cautiously settled on his forehead when the coughing then refused to subside. "Hell, captain. You're burning up."

He vaguely registered the boy standing, thought he might walk off and leave him, until deceptively strong hands gripped his upper arm and dragged him upright—had he been lying down?—propping him up against the wall with his legs stretched before him. Something cool met his lips and he didn't question Ivan's quiet order for him to drink.

Yuri laid his head back against the wall when Ivan took the water bottle away from him, ignoring the twinge of pain at the contact, and let his eyes fall closed again. Warmth settled at his side, he heard Ivan give a rough sigh before feeling the boy's concerned gaze raking over him.

"What happened?" The question was so quiet that Yuri couldn't be sure whether he'd actually imagined it.

All of a sudden, everything that had happened between watching Piotr being taken away in the training centre and watching Sergei walk away from him hit Yuri full-on, the absurdity of it all—of _everything_ —dragging a strangled laugh from his throat. Ivan stared, wide-eyed at his outburst. "I think I may have upset Seriy."

"You don't say." Ivan was eyeing Yuri's throat as he spoke, surely his skin carried dark bruises, and had probably just put two and two together, but for some reason, Yuri's mind screamed at him that there was more behind Ivan's words than he let on.

He'd once prided himself on knowing all there was to know about the Abbey, a fountain of knowledge when it came to knowing who could help and who to avoid, the one boy everyone wanted to get close to just so they could take advantage of the power he held and the respect he demanded, and always the first to hear a rumour before it had even circulated.

But that seemed so long ago. Now he couldn't help but feel completely in the dark; everything he'd thought he knew, everything he'd believed, was it really possible it had all just been a lie? Sergei had said something about keeping him safe, but at that moment, Yuri couldn't possibly feel more threatened.

Ivan was standing before him, hand held out to help Yuri to his feet. He took it gratefully, leaning back against the wall again and willing his legs to stop shaking so that he could walk. He spared a quick glance up and down the corridor as Ivan hoisted his launcher back onto his shoulder and adjusted his goggles. Yuri remembered that he still had no idea where they were, the damp walls and uneven stone floor beneath his feet entirely unfamiliar.

A thought struck him, pulling his face into a frown. "Why are you down here, Vanya?"

Guilt flashed across Ivan's eyes—lightning fast, Yuri probably wouldn't have caught it if he hadn't been looking for it—and he wasn't sure whether to believe the boy's cautious explanation. "Shortcut up from engineering. I was working on some new designs this afternoon, got distracted, didn't want to miss dinner."

Unless Ivan's shortcut involved burrowing underground, Yuri wasn't convinced. He may not have been as fluent with the maze of hidden tunnels as Ivan was, but he still knew full well that a wide open courtyard stood between the East and West sides of the building, the only way to get from one to the other was by a corridor that stretched through the central area of the Abbey. From the look on Ivan's face, he was fully aware that Yuri didn't believe him.

Ivan coughed, shuffling his feet awkwardly and readjusting his goggles again. Nervous. Uncertain. "Look, captain. I don’t wanna tell you what to do, but… maybe you should just drop it?"

"Drop what?" Anger coiled in Yuri's gut, his words escaping in a snarl. "Drop _what_ Vanya? I have no idea what's going on anymore!" His arm flung out of its own accord, indicating the corridor and the space between them and everything Yuri just didn't understand.

At least Ivan had the decency to recoil from his wrath. He swallowed thickly, pressed his lips together and diverted his gaze to the ground. "Seriously, Yura. Just _leave it_ , alright?" he whispered, "let's just go eat or something."

Yuri forced a sigh through his nose, trying to redirect all of his anger into that one breath, but it only served to irritate him further as his throat convulsed at the action. "I'm not hungry."

There was a possibility he was misinterpreting Ivan's guilt, and he prayed that he was. But if the boy _was_ involved in more than he'd let on, if he really had been leading Yuri around, pretending all along that he knew no more than Yuri himself… perhaps he should have been more cautious about trusting him.

Ivan shrugged, folding his hands behind his head and sparing Yuri one final unreadable glance before he walked off, following the same direction Sergei had taken previously.

Yuri didn't even watch him go, slumping forwards against the wall and pressing his face against the cold stone. He willed his mind to quiet, forcing away the onslaught of thoughts and questions and confusion as he was in no real state to dwell on them. In fact, he realised slowly that he had no idea what time it was; how long had he been lying on the ground before Ivan found him? What had he missed?

Suddenly desperate for something familiar and comforting, Yuri rammed his hands into his pockets to find his blade, wanting nothing more than to close his hands around her and focus only on her presence in his mind. With a rising sense of dread, he realised she wasn't there, his pockets were empty—in fact, he couldn't even recall picking her up in the training room earlier—which surely meant…

Sergei must have picked Wolborg up after their session. And if there was anyone he absolutely did _not_ want to see at that moment, it was the boy that had almost strangled him in a fit of rage.


	24. Chapter 24

When Yuri pushed himself up onto his elbows before dawn that morning, blinking the sleep from his eyes despite barely managing more than a few hours and ducking his head to muffle his yawn with his pillow, the only thing on his mind was that he needed desperately to get his blade back. Valkov wouldn’t take kindly at all to him being late for training, and if he turned up _without_ Wolborg in his hand, well, Yuri knew there was no excuse in the world that would placate the man’s anger.

He slid down the ladder, legs still tangled in his sheets, and jumped back in shock at the absurdly bright green eyes staring at him from the bottom bunk.

Boris merely chuckled, moving to crouch next to him on the floor with a smirk on his lips and mischief dancing in his voice. “Morning. You didn’t hear me come in last night, did you?”

Yuri managed a mangled groan and smothered his face with his hands. He couldn’t even remember getting back to his room, let alone anything that happened after that. A calloused hand gripped his own and pulled him to his feet, Yuri giving his friend a quiet murmur of gratitude as he stumbled to the basin to splash his face and wake himself up.

Just as he turned to retrieve the towel from under his mattress, Boris’ arm caught around his back and cold fingers tilted his chin up. Yuri closed his eyes as he recalled Sergei’s suffocating fist, certain that his neck had bruised from the contact. The twinge of pain as fingers trailed over his skin confirmed it even before the boy hissed at the damage.

“What happened?” Boris asked quietly, reminding Yuri of Ivan’s guilt from the previous evening before he forcefully shoved the memory from his mind.

Yuri jerked away from Boris’ grasp but was only able to take a single step back before the boy caught him again, arms almost too tight around Yuri’s waist. “Borya—”

“Give me a name and I’ll let go.”

As usual, Boris’ stubborn, protective attitude didn’t disappoint. “I can’t. Don’t get involved, please.” How often had he been told the exact same thing himself?

“Too late for that.” Boris huffed but let his arms fall away, leaving Yuri feeling strangely empty.

Yuri washed in silence, keeping an eye on Boris standing at the window, one arm braced against the glass as he scowled out into the darkness. If it had been anyone else, anyone but Sergei, Yuri would have given up his attacker’s name without a second thought. It was an unspoken agreement between them, had been for as long as Yuri could remember; a whisper of a name from one and the other would ensure whoever it was would never harm again. Boris took to it with his fists and the undeniable fear he invoked in the other boys, and Yuri used manipulation and the respect his status demanded to get others to do the dirty work for him.

But in this case, sending Boris after Sergei would be like sending his friend to his own funeral. Yuri had always thought of Sergei as the strong, silent observer. Not one to talk much, though when he did you listened. Not once had Yuri imagined the threatening, violent nature he had seen the day before, not from Sergei. Powerful, selfless and always willing to stand up to protect those weaker than him, yes, but never causing harm without good reason.

And never causing harm to those he’d promised to watch over.

“Borya,” Yuri began, pausing halfway in throwing his sheets back onto his bunk and waiting until the other boy turned his head to regard him. Anxiety swirled in his gut as he realised that Boris may well have been in on the secret everyone but him seemed to be aware of. He hoped not; they had already pushed their trust to the limit thanks to Yuri’s involvement with Kai. “What does Seriy do here?”

When Boris merely quirked an eyebrow at him and showed nothing but genuine curiosity—and amusement at what he apparently deemed to be a ridiculous question—Yuri breathed an inward sigh of relief.

“He lives life to the full like the rest of us?” Boris gave a breathy chuckle at his own joke, shaking his head before meeting Yuri’s eyes again. There was something in Boris’ voice, the small, lazy smile on his lips and the way his eyes sparkled with humour that made Yuri’s apprehension drain away just a little bit.

He didn’t need to ask again, didn’t need to elaborate on his question as he already understood that Boris knew no more than he did. It wasn’t until Boris jumped with a sudden realisation, drawing something round and metallic from his pocket that Yuri was flooded once again with dread. Lying innocently in Boris’ upturned palm was his blade.

“Where was she?” he asked, snatching Wolborg from Boris’ hand with more force than necessary, drawing a frown from his friend as he dropped his arm to his side.

Boris took a second to stare at Yuri’s trembling hands—he couldn’t stop them if he tried—before he spoke, slowly and deliberately. “Seriy came by last night, just as I got here. You were completely out of it so he gave her to me instead.”

Yuri nodded quickly, clutching his blade so tightly he could feel the edges nicking his skin. “Did he say anything?”

“No…” Boris trailed off; curiosity giving way to suspicion that only deepened Yuri’s anxiety. “Should he have?”

He was cut off from replying as heavy footsteps echoed through the corridor, much more deliberate than for a patrolling guard, and the very second the door handle shifted, Boris dropped to the floor and squeezed himself under the bottom bunk. He knew just as well as Yuri did that if someone caught him out of his room so early in the morning, they’d both be paying the price.

Yuri stood to attention as a man marched in, easily recognising him as one of Valkov’s personal security; a higher rank than the rest of the guards, only one step down from Levitsky, specially trained and with a big enough pay check that they didn’t once question Valkov’s orders, no matter what they were asked to do. Apparently money could make even the most righteous of men blind to injustice.

“Valkov wants you, now,” the man ordered, leaving little room for argument.

Yuri frowned. “What for?” he asked, racking his brain for any reason Valkov might want to see him. He’d hit his targets as expected in his recent training sessions, hadn’t been doing anything unusual, unless somebody had spotted him lying in the underground corridor the night before? He still had no idea how long he’d been down there, but there was a good chance he hadn’t made his way back until after curfew.

“No questions. Get moving.” The guard stepped aside, one hand firmly on the edge of the door, holding it open, and the other resting on the metal baton clipped to his belt. A subtle warning, no doubt. The guard was staring straight at him, waiting. Yuri took in his cropped hair, the slight bend of his nose and the stubble along his jaw, was sure he’d seen the man before but couldn’t come up with a name. He had to fight to stop his eyes from straying to where Boris was hiding under the bed.

He nodded once and took a step towards the bottom bunk where Boris had kicked his training uniform into a pile during the night, intending to change his clothes. The guard wasn’t impressed, and he locked his free hand tightly around Yuri’s elbow to stop him.

“I said _move_.” Was the only warning Yuri got before he was yanked sharply in the direction of the door.

Whatever Valkov wanted to see him for, it was clearly something urgent. A flicker of panic stirred in Yuri’s gut as an unwanted thought popped into his head; had he finally been found out?

Yuri could feel Boris’ eyes on him as he left, and a part of him wished he had told Boris the truth about what he’d been doing with Ivan, about the details of Kai’s letters and about the information he’d stolen from Valkov’s office. Part of him wished Boris knew what he and Ivan had overheard in the vents above the labs.

Just in case he didn’t come back.

As he was led through the corridors in silence, struggling to keep up with the guard’s pace, Yuri realised that his wish was practically worthless. After all, if he was right, if Valkov _had_ found out what had been going on behind his back, then after he was done with Yuri, who else would he turn to next if not the boy he knew was Yuri’s closest friend?

If anything, Yuri knew he should have been thankful he _hadn_ _’t_ revealed anything to Boris, because at least if he was questioned, he wouldn’t need to lie because he didn’t know anything in the first place.

The temperature steadily dropped, and Yuri absently rubbed his arms for warmth, his bare feet already feeling numb from the cold stone floor. It was still early, before the first wake-up call, so would Valkov berate him for arriving in his sleepwear? It wasn’t as though Yuri had intended to walk around the Abbey in only a thin vest and an old, torn pair of tournament uniform leggings he’d managed to keep hold of—so short now that they barely reached his ankles—but the guard hadn’t even let him consider changing.

It wasn’t until they’d descended another set of stairs that took them one level below ground that Yuri dumbly realised he wasn’t being led to Valkov’s office at all. The man walking in front of him seemed to know precisely where he was going as there was no hint of hesitation in his stride, but Yuri was almost certain he was in yet another section of the Abbey he hardly recognised.

Nine long years of captivity and there were still areas he hadn’t explored. He wondered whether he should have taken a leaf out of Ivan’s book and traded secrets for some insider knowledge of the hidden corridors and tunnels that made up the Abbey’s underground, but it was probably too late for that now. Yuri couldn’t help but feel mildly irritated by the wasted opportunity.

He asked before he could stop himself. The guard spared him a glance over his shoulder, shook his head and said nothing.

The door they stopped at was thick and heavy, seemingly made of the same metal that lined the walls and floor of the corridor, through Yuri didn’t have much time to wonder _why_ the stone had been covered as he was forced through the door a second later.

A single bulb dangling from a thin wire struggled to properly light the room, and it swayed as the door was slammed shut behind him, sending Valkov’s elongated shadow dancing over the wall. The man had his back to him, stood in front of a table at the far end of the room, though Yuri couldn’t see what was on top of it. Levitsky stood watch by the door, the other guard had disappeared.

“Take a seat.” Valkov flicked his hand to indicate the one other piece of furniture in the room.

Yuri eyed the lone chair sceptically, gaze flicking first to the bizarre metal contraption strapped to the back before he noticed the thick buckles hanging from the armrests. Wires ran from the arms, up to the contraption and down to the floor, where they trailed across the room to the table. Neatly arranged, as if someone had tried to make the chair seem more like a promise of comfort and less like a torture device.

“I’d rather stand, sir,” he said, already knowing that he’d be overruled. If Valkov wanted him to sit, then he would sit whether he agreed to do so or not.

“Take a seat, Ivanov,” Valkov repeated, more forceful this time and Yuri felt more than heard Levitsky step up behind him.

Yuri took a hesitant step towards the chair, Levitsky giving him a painful shove on the shoulder that pushed him the rest of the way, and he slowly lowered himself down with his hands in his lap to avoid touching any of the wires. Without a word from Valkov, Levitsky appeared in front of him to grab his wrists and buckle them tightly to the chair. The metal dug into his arms but Yuri refused to make a sound.

Valkov placed something heavy on the table, and Yuri heard the rustle of paper. “Do you know why you’re here?”

“No sir,” Yuri replied, keeping his voice level as the last thing he wanted to do was reveal the rising panic he felt in his chest. Levitsky had disappeared from view again and Valkov still had his back turned, so Yuri discreetly tested the strength of his bonds by trying to twist his hands to reach the buckles with his fingers. The metal underneath scratched his wrists and he was sure he felt it break skin, but the straps were far too tight for him to get himself free.

He closed his eyes and took a deep, steady breath as it became blindingly obvious that he was trapped.

“What is your name?” Valkov asked, stunning Yuri with the apparent randomness of the question.

Was it some sort of trick question? “Yuri Ivanov,” he said slowly, starting to doubt himself even though he knew the answer. He gasped as a short electric shock suddenly danced up his right arm. Not quite painful, but enough to make his hand clench around the arm of the chair.

“Your _full_ name, boy,” Valkov said as Yuri blinked down at his hand. The spark had emanated from under his wrist, he was sure of it. Was that what the metal contraption attached to the chair was for?

Flexing his fingers, Yuri swallowed thickly and forced out an answer. “Yuri Igorevich Ivanov. Sir.” He added quickly.

The next question was just as pointless as the first. “When is your birthday?”

“August eighth, sir.” Yuri narrowed his eyes and stared hard at the back of Valkov’s head. What was the man playing at, asking questions he already knew the answer to?

“How old are you?”

Yuri wanted to spit out that the man already knew his age but he swallowed the words. “I’m 16.” Another shock sparked through Yuri’s body, from the left this time, and he grit his teeth. “ _Sir_.”

The shocks were definitely coming from his wrists, but with his arms strapped down there wasn’t any way for him to avoid them.

“Very good.” Valkov hadn’t turned from the table and was still leafing through papers, but his voice had taken on a patronising tone, as if he were talking to a child, and it instantly became irritating. “Now tell me, what were your orders going into the World Championship tournament?”

It clicked in Yuri’s mind that Valkov must have been controlling the electricity, probably with a hidden remote, which meant that Yuri couldn’t be sure when the next attack was coming. Any other time, if Valkov wanted to punish him, it would be with his fists or through one of the guards at least. Valkov liked to break people down, liked to watch them try, and fail, to defend themselves; the idea of the chair and the pain Yuri couldn’t see coming wasn’t the man’s style at all.

Valkov was trying to throw him off, Yuri realised, trying to surprise him, to trip him up. Yuri couldn’t defend himself from something he couldn’t see, after all, which meant Valkov was aiming to make him panic and frighten him into submission.

Yuri wouldn’t let him; he’d get the answers Yuri wanted to give, not the answers the man was trying to force out of him.

“My orders were to instil fear in my opponents, to destroy them until there was nothing left.” They had been clear, concise, and drilled into him every other second during the months leading up to the tournament. How could Yuri forget them when he could still hear Valkov’s voice echoing in his ears?

With a muted sigh, one that sounded more like boredom than impatience, Valkov slammed shut whatever he’d been looking through and tucked his hands into his pockets. “And what did you do?”

“I failed.” Yuri bit down on his lip, unwilling flinching from an attack that never came and hating himself for it. He couldn’t let Valkov see that the twisted tactics he was using were actually working.

Valkov didn’t even turn to regard at him, merely nodded and continued. His tone and his complete lack of reaction to Yuri’s admission were starting to set him on edge. “I see. The chair you are currently sitting in, do you know how it works?”

“No sir.” Yuri lied, he was almost certain he had worked it out, but the longer he could keep Valkov talking, the longer he had to try and think up an escape plan.

“Then I’ll tell you.” Valkov finally moved, staring down at Yuri with a blank expression as he leaned back against the table. “Under each of your wrists is a small electrical node, and when these are activated, they send a current through your body. Their activation, and the strength of the current, is controlled by this.” Valkov drew his hand out of his pocket and with it a small, square device. “Do you understand?”

“I think so, sir.” He’d been right then; Valkov was able to cause him pain without physically touching him. Just the flick of a button would send another charge shooting through his body. Yuri wasn’t entirely sure just how strong the current could go, but he was certain he didn’t want to find out.

The man slowly rounded on him, briefly turning the remote over in his fingers before placing it back in his pocket. “When the concept was first brought to my attention, I thought it was rather barbaric. However, since it has been used to great success by the science department, most notably on your dear friend Kuznetsov, I can now see benefits of it.”

Before Yuri even had the chance to wonder how many times Boris had found himself strapped to the chair, trapped just as he was, Valkov lurched forward, slamming his hands down on Yuri’s wrists and resting his weight on them. Yuri barely held back a grimace as the metal wires dug into his arms. Valkov’s voice had lost its calm, casual tone and had become dangerous. “Let’s play a game, Ivanov. I am going to ask you questions and you are going to give me answers. Give me a satisfactory answer and I won’t activate the current. However, if you don’t tell me what I want to know—if you _lie_ to me—you’ll have to be dragged out of this room unconscious. Is that clear?”

“Yes… yes sir.” The simmering panic that had initially made it know when Yuri had woken up instantly doubled, tightening around his chest like a vice. He didn’t know for sure what Valkov wanted answers to, but he could certainly hazard a guess.

If anything, he probably should have just been thankful Valkov hadn’t noticed the missing files earlier.


	25. Chapter 25

Yuri bit down on his cheek, hard, and focused on a singular point on the floor. Valkov was going to ask him about the stolen files, that much was clear, and Yuri kicked his mind into overdrive to come up with answers for every possible question the man might put to him. Thoughts and ideas flickered to life, an entire web of lies mapped out in seconds, but as Yuri tried to reach out and grab hold of it, the web slipped through his fingers like water. It evaporated before he was even able to read it and left him with nothing.

Valkov returned to the table and Yuri was made to wait as he picked up a glass and took a long sip before he spoke again. “Two months ago, I returned from Saint Petersburg to find that the security camera outside my office was no longer working correctly. Why do you think that was?”

“A computer malfunction?” Yuri said quietly. A malfunction was plausible, especially if the cameras ran on the same technology as the computers in the training centre.

Valkov's hand didn't move back to his pocket and Yuri breathed an inward sigh of relief. A moment passed as Valkov considered Yuri's answer. “A possibility," he agreed, "I reviewed the recording myself, however, and it seemed as though the camera was moved. Can you think of any reason why somebody would want to redirect the camera so that it wasn’t focused on the door?”

“No sir.” He was pushing his luck, he knew he was, and he felt himself tense as Valkov's hand went for the remote.

The man slowly pulled the device out, shifted it to his other hand, and aimed it at Yuri's face. “Try again.”

A short burst of pain flared through Yuri's left side as he opened his mouth, and he let out a shuddering breath as soon as it passed. “Maybe… maybe someone wanted to get in?” He dared a glance at Valkov's face and was met with a sickening smirk, coming to the conclusion that Valkov already _knew_ who had broken in to his office and that he was just playing with Yuri for amusement.

“That is exactly what I thought at the time. The guard stationed outside did have a rather interesting story to tell. I checked though my office of course, and was surprised to find something was missing." Valkov took another sip from his glass and ran his thumb along the edge of the remote. "What do you think was missing?”

“I don’t know—” Yuri bit down hard on his lip as the current on the right was activated, his fingers twitching erratically. He forced out his answer again through clenched teeth. “I don’t know, sir.”

Valkov scoffed, flicking off the current and using the remote to push Yuri's head back so that their eyes met. The look of utter disgust on Valkov's face made Yuri squirm. “This isn’t a _game_ , Ivanov. Who told you about those files?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered. Vasily's words whispered through his mind and his voice wavered, betraying him more than anything else would have. The current was back on in a heartbeat and Yuri flinched, jerking in the chair as Valkov cruelly flicked the strength up a few notches. His hands were clenched so tightly around the armrests that his knuckles were bleached white, and even after Valkov had switched the current off again, Yuri found he could barely move his fingers.

“The files that were stolen held information on Kuznetsov and yourself, boy. Why would anybody _but_ you want to steal them?” Yuri's eyes widened at the mention of his friend's name and Valkov noticed. Excruciating pain flared from his right arm, spreading everywhere until it was all Yuri could to not to scream.

On instinct he forced himself to ignore the pain and focus on something else—just as he’d been trained to do—and remembered that Wolborg still sat in his pocket. He felt her presence tugging at the back of his mind and found himself standing by the edge of a dish facing off against a mechanical launcher. He tried to find the sense of calm that usually came over him when he was training but couldn’t quite recall the feeling. He loaded Wolborg in the lock, set his sights on the base of the dish and pulled the ripcord. Load, set, pull. Ready, aim, fire—just like a gun.

Just like the guns the guards carried outside the main science labs. Like the gun Valkov had used to murder the doctor that worked on Boris’ training.

When the pain vanished, Yuri could barely breathe through the tightness in his chest

“Who helped you get into my office?" Valkov asked icily, "of the two of you, I know that you’re the only one intelligent enough to steal those files, but you certainly don’t have the courage to try it yourself. Who helped you?”

Yuri struggled to make his lips move, stumbling clumsily over his words. “I don’t… it wasn’t me.”

“Liar.” Valkov curled his hand tightly around Yuri’s neck, pressing hard and knocking the chair back onto two legs. “What happened to those files, Ivanov? Where are they?”

“ _I don_ _’t know_.” He sounded desperate and he knew it. His throat convulsed under Valkov’s palm. _Ready, aim, fire._

Valkov growled—a low, dangerous noise that only further heightened Yuri’s panic—and backhanded Yuri sharply across his cheek. He turned back to the table and placed the remote down, fingers playing over the buttons for a teasing second before he hit the current again.

Yuri screwed his eyes shut against the pain, against the pure agony writhing through his body. He forced his mind out again, tearing away from the claws holding him down. _Ready, aim, fire_. The mechanical launcher opposite became Valkov’s twisted face and laughed, and the image was replaced with another—Boris was sat in the chair, Yuri was staring down at him, laughing in Valkov’s voice, his own finger pressed on the remote. Boris grimaced, jaw clenched so tight that he could’ve broken bone. Yuri could hear his teeth grinding, could see every ounce of tension in his friend’s body, could feel the scream Boris refused to let go of.

Valkov was talking again, Yuri bit into his tongue and held onto the image of Boris like a lifeline.

“—etsov is a bad influence on you, boy, you were so much easier to deal with when you were willing to do anything to please—”

Boris opened his mouth, his body jerked in the chair, nails splitting against the armrests and biting crescents into his palms.

“I thought that by threatening him it would bring you back under my control, but apparently—”

A finger twitched on the remote—his? Valkov’s? he wasn’t even sure—and increased the strength, Boris pulled against his bonds. The bulb flickered, throwing the room into darkness and yanking it back, Boris swam in and out of focus.

“—perhaps I should question him next?”

Boris’ eyes rolled back into his skull, mouth hanging open. Blood stained his fingers and soaked into the chair. Valkov’s voice echoed in the room, so clear and so vivid that Yuri could almost see it.

“Or perhaps I should be questioning someone else. You and Ivan Papov seem to have become good friends, wouldn’t you say?”

Ivan sat before him, fear painted over his face, lies and truths and everything in between falling from his lips as he begged to be released. The hand holding the remote raised, Ivan’s eyes shot wide open with terror. Yuri heard a scream.

The pain stopped abruptly and the image vanished from Yuri’s mind, leaving him with absolute blankness. Spots of colour danced inside his eyelids and he could feel every beat of his heart, pounding so hard he was certain it had forced its way out of his chest. He tried to breathe, sucking in air and drowning in it. The coppery taste of blood in his mouth made him gag.

“Well?” Valkov said, tugging at Yuri’s hair and pulling his head up so he could see his face. “Should I be speaking to Papov?”

Yuri repeated the words in his mind but couldn’t get any meaning out of them let alone work out the answer. “He’s—”

“He’s…" Valkov prompted, watching Yuri’s face intently. He snarled when Yuri refused to give anymore, lunging forward again and spitting his next words. "He's _what_ , Ivanov?”

He heard his voice but couldn’t feel his lips move. He couldn’t feel anything. “I don’t know…”

Valkov pushed away again, pacing around the room and circling the chair. Yuri gasped, breath coming in ragged bursts, and let his head loll back. Tears had sprung to his eyes and fallen, he imagined the wetness on his cheeks, the tickle against his skin as they traced down his neck.

From somewhere behind him, Valkov spoke up again. His words filled the room and weighed heavily on Yuri’s shoulders. “It does seem a rather strange coincidence that the last two people to make their way to my office before I left for Saint Petersburg were Papov and yourself, just as it seems an even _stranger_ coincidence that Papov thought that someone had managed to escape. Despite his age, that boy is extremely smart and I know precisely what he’s capable of; I doubt it would’ve taken him long to work out a way to trick the guard—did you honestly think that I wouldn’t question him first? Not that it matters now, I doubt the poor man will be up and about any time soon judging by the state Levitsky left him in. You truly are _pathetic_ , Ivanov.”

For the briefest second, Yuri glimpsed the face of the man they’d lied to. Ivan sat in the chair again, terrified. “Sir, _please_ ,” he whispered, barely hearing it himself, and somewhere in the back of his wondered when he had resorted to begging.

“Plead all you want, it won’t help you. I will find those files, I _will_ find out who else was involved in stealing them, and I promise that when I do, _none_ of you will see the light of day again.”

Yuri barely had time to blink before the current fired up again, Valkov’s sadistic smirk blurred as the room spun and darkened. The scream he heard was definitely his own.

Just as he was on the verge of blacking out, the current switched off and Yuri slumped forward. He swayed somewhere between awake and unconscious, struggling to take in air as his throat convulsed repeatedly. His view of his legs slipped in and out of focus as his vision swam and he wasn't sure whether the noise he could hear was Valkov's voice or the erratic pounding of his heart.

The straps around his wrists were removed, and Yuri felt light-headed as he was pulled up from the chair. He felt his knees buckle as the hands holding him upright disappeared, but the pain of hitting the floor seemed distant, as if it were happening to someone else and he was just watching on.

He fell forward onto his hands, barely able to support himself, and tried to force his breathing to even out. Nausea washed over him, and Yuri suddenly wanted nothing more than to give in to it, a pathetic whine escaping his throat when he realised he hadn't yet regained enough control over his body to do even that.

Somewhere to his right he heard the bang of a door and the sound of approaching footsteps echoed in his ears. Rough hands grabbed onto his bare arms, lifting him back to his feet, and Yuri tried to focus his attention on walking but only managed to stumble a few steps before he phased out again.

He only caught snippets of the corridors he was dragged through but was able to catch enough to recognise where he was being taken. The stairs were a challenge, the more aware Yuri became the more he felt the lingering pain rattling through his body. He doubled-over twice, had to be carried both times, but was just about able to stand unaided when they stopped outside his bedroom. The corridor was deserted, and he vaguely realised that he had no idea what time it was or how long he'd been trapped in the chair for.

As Valkov let himself in and looked around, Yuri spared a quick glance at the two guards flanking him on both sides. On his right was Levitsky, on his left the guard who had lead him from his room earlier, whose grip wasn’t even half as tight as Levitsky’s.

Another shove from behind sent him tumbling into the room, tripping over himself and sprawling to the floor with a wince. Valkov knelt down by his face, giving him a look of undisguised contempt before barking an order to the guard Yuri recognised. “Search everything.”

Yuri watched from the floor, blinking away fresh tears that he refused to let go of, as Levitsky tore the bedding from both bunks and shook it out. His pillow fell out of its case and landed limp on the floor, and Yuri prayed to whoever would still listen him that neither Valkov nor Levitsky were smart enough to inspect it. Kai’s letters were tucked inside, as was his birth certificate—if Valkov found them, not only would he have confirmation that Yuri had been the one to steal the files but he’d also have a fair idea of who currently held them.

The pillow was thrown just a few feet from Yuri’s head and he fought the urge to reach out to it, instead turning his gaze to the doorway and the second guard that stood, watching in silence. Levitsky drew a flick-knife from his belt and slashed through both mattresses, pulling out stuffing and broken springs, but aside from the towel Yuri had stolen years ago, he found nothing.

Valkov looked furious, kicking out at Yuri’s stomach. Yuri flinched, so did the guard in the doorway and Yuri held tight to the realisation. “This is your last chance, boy. Tell me where those files are and nobody else will be hurt.”

Yuri clenched his jaw at the fresh wave of pain and shook his head.

“Very well.” Valkov turned to the nameless man behind him who suddenly jumped to attention. Yuri committed his face to memory; a guard that was distracted was a guard that could be exploited. “You, go down to the West Wing and check Papov’s room, have him taken to my office.”

Yuri had to stop himself before he scoffed, miserable laughter bubbling inside him. Ivan wasn’t stupid enough to leave evidence out in the open; he knew better than anyone how to play the system in the Abbey.

As if reading his mind, Valkov gave the guard another order. “Have someone clear his workroom as well, and confiscate that old laptop he uses. I want _everything_ checked.”

The cables and the little box Ivan used with his laptop to keep his presence hidden from the Abbey’s computer security were kept in his workroom. Yuri didn’t know a lot about computers, not to the extent Ivan did, but he was sure it wouldn’t take long for the technicians to work out precisely what the boy had been doing to their training results, what he’d been looking for in places he wasn’t actually allowed to be.

A strangled whimper escaped Yuri’s throat before he could swallow it and Valkov noticed.

“Got something to say?” Valkov’s eyes burning into Yuri’s, the weight of his gaze almost crushing Yuri into the ground. “You brought this on yourself, Ivanov. You and you alone are responsible for whatever happens to your ‘friends’. Remember that.”

Yuri froze as Valkov’s words sank in, white-knuckled fists scraping along the stone floor as he curled around himself.

He’d made the plan and had dragged Ivan into it. He’d deliberately kept Boris in the dark. Vasily and Sergei had helped him get his letters back out. Valkov was right, he _was_ responsible. If he’d just done as Kai asked, if he’d just kept everything to himself… He wondered what might have happened if he’d ignored Kai’s request, if he’d torn his letter to shreds and thrown it out of his window instead of clinging to it and filling himself with worthless hope. Imagining the pieces floating away on the wind, their only real chance of escape, Yuri knew he couldn’t have ignored Kai at all.

Ivan and Boris, Sergei and Vasily, and even Piotr. They’d all trusted him, their captain—their friend—and he’d repaid them by bringing Valkov’s wrath down tenfold. Yuri was no fool; he knew there was no way Ivan would be able to stand up to the torture Valkov would put him through, and there was no reason for Valkov to keep Boris around now that Yuri had been broken. Sergei and Vasily would never see daylight again. He’d already failed Piotr.

Which left him with only one choice.

Yuri swallowed his pride and the lump in his throat and opened his mouth, prepared to admit defeat and suffer the consequences. What else could he do?

A new voice echoed from the doorway. “Sir, the Director called, says it’s important.”

Valkov scowled and turned his attention to the man ripping apart the mattresses. “Have you found anything?” From the corner of his eye, Yuri saw Levitsky shake his head. “Fine. Go downstairs to room 212 and clear it. Tear the brickwork out if you have to. Send Kuznetsov to isolation.”

“How long for?” Levitsky’s voice was gruff, more so than Yuri remembered. He pocketed his knife but made no move to fix the mess he’d made. There was a grim look on his face, but Yuri saw it was only irritation at the extra workload. The man didn’t seem bothered about the lives he was helping to ruin.

“Until I remember to let him out. In fact…" Valkov’s eyes met Yuri’s again as if searching for something—for what, Yuri couldn’t tell. A beat passed before Valkov smirked. “No, send him to Barinov. I’m sure the good doctor will be pleased to see him.”

“Of course.” Levitsky nodded and left.

Valkov turned back to him as the man’s footsteps disappeared down the corridor, his lips curled into a nasty sneer. “You remember Doctor Barinov, don’t you?”

Of course he did, who could forget such a brutal, cold-blooded monster? Doctor Barinov oversaw the science department and was responsible for every twisted experiment they ran. Boris had been thrust into the man’s open arms when Valkov realised his previous training had failed. Yuri had only met the doctor once, but he knew from that time alone, and from every rumour he had heard from the other boys at the Abbey, that Barinov’s personal experiments didn’t have a very high survival rate.

And Boris served no purpose to Valkov now.

A hand landed on Yuri’s shoulder, heavy, patronising, _suffocating_ , and Valkov’s nails dug into his skin to remind him that everything was real. “When you feel like talking, boy, you know where to find me.”

Yuri was sure he heard his heart breaking.


	26. Chapter 26

“Yuri.” A familiar voice called his name but Yuri only wished it would leave him alone. He felt warm, comfortable, more so than he had done for a very long time. He didn’t want to open his eyes.

“Yuri, come on, wake up.” The voice was persistent, and Yuri felt a soft touch on his forehead, gently stirring him from sleep. “There you go.”

Yuri slowly opened his eyes, the grey-white ceiling of a darkened room coming into focus. He turned his head towards the voice and the action felt awkward and strenuous. His mouth fell open when he realised who was beside him. “ _Kai_?”

“Who else?” The corner of Kai’s lips twitched with a barely disguised smirk and relief shone in his usually cold ruby-red eyes.

A hundred questions and scenarios washed through Yuri’s mind, tumbling over each other so fast that he couldn’t catch them. The last thing he recalled was Valkov’s sneer, the threat against his friends’ lives. He was in the Abbey, Kai should have been on the other side of the iron gates. It didn’t make sense. “ _How_?”

“How what? Were you having a nightmare?” Kai asked, folding his arms and leaning against Yuri’s bedside. Yuri looked over his surroundings, taking in what he could in the dim lighting. It looked like the medical ward, but his was the only bed in the room. A hospital then, maybe, _hopefully_. Were they out of the Abbey? Had they escaped?

“I…” Yuri trailed off, staring at Kai’s face, his hair, the painted triangles on his cheeks, everything seemed so _real_. “Maybe.”

“The doctor thought you might, I wouldn’t worry about it,” Kai said nonchalantly, shrugging as amusement played over his face. Yuri couldn’t tear his eyes away.

“Doctor?” Dread coiled in Yuri’s chest, smothering the sense of safety he felt.

Kai got to his feet, lazily stretching his arms over his head. The long scarf that Yuri had mocked him for during the championship slid down over Kai’s shoulder and Yuri wanted to reach out and touch it before Kai flicked it back. “Doctor Barinov’s looking after you now. He’ll be here soon, I just thought I’d come by to see you first.”

“ _Barinov_?” Panic shot through Yuri, setting every nerve on fire, and he forced himself upright. His body caught against something and dropped back down, a fearful glance confirmed that he was strapped to the bed. “Kai, wait!”

Kai turned in the doorway, smiling. “I’m glad you’re alright, Yura.” His voice softened and drifted away, he faded before he’d left the room. Yuri screamed.

“ _Kai_!”

Panicked, Yuri launched himself from the bed and crashed face-first into an unforgiving stone wall. A wall that shouldn’t even have been there. He fell backwards, confused, afraid, clutching his face with one hand as his mind struggled to catch up with reality.

A flicker of pain danced across his wrist, and he carefully pulled his hand away to inspect it. A small, circular burn mark stood out against red-raw skin, and in an instant the memories came flooding back. Yuri lurched over the railing of the bunk—where the wall _should_ have been—and retched bile onto the floor.

He’d been dreaming again, Kai hadn’t been real.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Yuri stole a quick glance around the room to confirm he wasn’t in 309. The bunk was on the wrong side for a start and the window was boarded up so that only a tiny slither of light crept in. He balked as he realised dawn had come and gone, why had nobody woken him up? What about his training?

Assuming it was still morning anyway—he couldn’t be sure whether he was still on the East wing of the building, let alone still on the third floor. The sun didn’t hit the West until late afternoon, which meant if he’d been moved to the other side of the Abbey…

Yuri threw himself from the top bunk, carefully avoiding the mess he’d made, and was about to go out into the corridor when he realised he was still dressed in his sleepwear, vest damp with sweat. His training uniform wasn’t anywhere to be seen, which didn’t leave him with much of a choice.

Taking a deep breath and steeling himself for whatever he might meet on the other side of the door, Yuri slowly pulled it open and squinted as the light hit his eyes. The room number read 401, the exit that led to the stairwell was on his left, and down to the right, at the very far end of the corridor, was _that_ room.

He sprinted down the stairs to the floor below quicker than he should have, stumbling on the last flight and cracking his knees against the ground. Pain shot through his body and he threw his arms out, leaning over on all-fours and sucking in deep breaths until the pain faded.

Part of him hoped to see Boris already there in his room, sat on the bottom bunk, questions on the tip of his tongue about what had happened to his bedding and where Yuri had been all night, but he knew that the boy would be elsewhere. Valkov wasn’t the sort of man to go back on his word, which meant that Boris had most likely been taken down to the science labs as per his orders.

His room was a mess, both mattresses lying limp on the floor, springs poking out of gaping holes. The bunk bed had been pulled away from the wall and the sheets had been discarded under the basin. Yuri slowly picked his way across the floor, deliberately not disturbing anything as doubted he was allowed to enter his old room at all. He spotted a pillow under the bed, reaching down to grab it with shaking hands.

The stitching was still intact.

Swallowing down his rising dread, Yuri gripped his hair in both hands, tugging and glanced wildly around the room again, searching for the pillow from the top bunk, the one he’d hidden everything in. If Valkov had got hold of it, and Yuri prayed he hadn’t, then everything was over.

He ripped the sheets up from the floor and bundled them into the sink, flipped both mattresses over to check underneath and even buried his arms inside them just in case his pillow had somehow found its way there. Dropping to the floor, Yuri searched under the bottom bunk, despite the fact that he could see clearly through the slats that it wasn’t hiding anything else.

Nothing. There was only one pillow in the room, and even as Yuri crumpled it in his arms and picked apart the stitching, trying to convince himself that he was just being blind because he couldn’t bear to think about the possible alternative, Yuri knew it was no use. Valkov had found his evidence.

He wasn’t sure what had happened, whether he had merely fallen asleep or fainted or something in between—another ‘seizure’—but Yuri opened his eyes at the sound of a knock and found himself curled up on one of the torn mattresses.

He sat up just as the door opened and could easily have broken down into tears as Sergei stepped into the room.

“I hope whatever you’re doing is still worth it, Yura,” Sergei said, his voice as emotionless as his expression. He drew a bundle of paper from his pocket and placed it at the foot of the mattress, casting a dull glance around the room and answering the question Yuri didn’t want to ask. “Valkov’s gone. The Director wanted to see him. Get up; you’ve got training in ten minutes.”

Yuri’s lips formed a small ‘oh’, his training schedule having completely slipped his mind. “I have? But my uniform is—”

Sergei cocked an eyebrow at him that instantly sealed his mouth shut. “Then you’d better get down to the storeroom.”

“But—”

“ _Go_ , Yura.” The sharp tone of Sergei’s voice had Yuri on his feet in the blink of an eye, grabbing the paper from the mattress with one hand letting himself out into the corridor with the other.

He heard Sergei slam the bedroom door shutbut didn’t allow himself to stop and catch his breath until he was outside the storeroom.

Yuri closed his eyes, inhaled deeply and released it as a loud sigh. Every ounce of exhaustion he’d felt over the last few months suddenly caught up with him and left him leaning heavily against the wall. He stared down at his toes—two on his left foot slightly bent from poorly-healed fractures—and curled them against the stone floor. Even in his worn-through vest and leggings that only reached mid-calf, he was too numb to feel the cold. Or perhaps it was the cold that had left him numb?

His mind threatened to lead him to Boris, no doubt trapped in the lab, but he stamped the thought down before it could go any further. Paper rustled in his hands when he clenched his fists, and he remembered the pile Sergei had given him in his room. Yuri stole a glance, he desperately wanted to find out what he was holding but knew it would be a risk to find out when he was stood in an open corridor.

He wondered whether it was worth hoping that Sergei had somehow known about the letters hidden in his pillow and had gone to retrieve them before Valkov had arrived. Sergei shouldn’t have known what he had or where they were kept, but then again Sergei shouldn’t really have known he’d been writing to Kai at all. The older boy had surprised him more than once since they’d returned from the tournament and Yuri was now certain that he didn’t know as much about Sergei as he’d originally believed.

With another weary sigh, Yuri folded the paper into a strip and tucked it neatly into his waistband, pulling his vest over the top. There was nowhere private to change in the storeroom, just an open space with a desk, but Yuri had been sent to pick up a new training uniform enough times to know that the guard inside was too old and decrepit to notice what was happening right in front of him—Yuri could’ve waved Kai’s letters in his face and the guard wouldn’t bat an eyelid.

Manning the storeroom was probably the most tedious, dullest and least threatening role on the guard roster, no wonder Valkov had left it to his most tedious, dullest and least threatening guard.

Yuri took the few steps to the desk and rapped his knuckles on the wood, startling the man staring blankly at the computer screen. He stared up at Yuri, the few wisps of greying hair around his ears even greyer than Yuri remembered, the thin moustache even thinner and the deep-set wrinkles even deeper.

“Name?” he asked, even though Yuri was certain the guard knew who he was. Just ‘following procedure’, apparently.

“Ivanov. Yuri Igorevich.”

The guard made a few frail taps on the keyboard and brought up his file to find out his measurements; age, height, weight, not that it mattered because the uniforms only came in three sizes anyway. “What do you need?”

Yuri almost pointed out that it should have been obvious—he was standing in his sleepwear after all—but he bit his tongue and winced at the spark of pain. “Everything.”

He was made to wait as the guard hobbled through a back door, he was going to be late for training but wasn’t bothered, and shifted slightly to cast his eyes over the computer. A small, rectangular photograph stared back at him, just head and shoulders, and he found himself wondering absently how much he’d changed in the year since the picture had been taken. His hair was definitely longer now, hanging past his shoulders when it was wet, and he lifted a hand to his face to run his fingers along his jaw and cheekbones. He’d lost weight, he could tell that without even looking, purely because he knew he’d hardly been eating a thing since the days leading up to the championships. Clearly he hadn’t lost enough to gain the attention of the medical team as he hadn’t been put on a strict diet plan, or perhaps they had noticed but just didn’t care.

In the photo he looked alive, his skin carrying a slight pinkish hue, and he wondered how pale he was now, how dark and heavy the circles under his eyes were.

“Here, change over there where I can see you,” the guard said, dropping the pile of clothes to the desk with a thud and pointing towards a corner of the room with a bony finger.

Yuri nodded but said nothing, taking the pile and stepping away. As one of the more experienced bladers he should have been wearing grey, not the muddy brown he was holding, but Yuri couldn’t muster the energy to argue about it. He tore a hole into the lining of the new jacket he was given and quickly slipped the papers inside, as expected the guard wasn’t even looking at him, laced the boots that felt a size too big and dumped his sleepwear into the wide bin against the wall as per procedure. He’d have to find something else to wear that night; with Boris gone there wasn’t anyone else he felt comfortable sharing a bunk with for warmth.

* * *

Time crept along antagonising slowly during his training, so much so that Yuri was forced to shut his mind off before it started to wander. The sense of calm that usually came over him when he trained seemed nothing more than a far-off memory; he found he couldn’t quite stretch quite far enough to grab it. He heard Wolborg’s howl, her pain and concern flooding through him, but for once didn’t know what to say or do to subdue her.

He wasn’t sure what distracted him, but after hours of repetitive launching and reloading, Yuri caught Wolborg in his hand and turned to the computer station behind the divide. The technician had disappeared, and Yuri realised with equal parts excitement and anxiety that he hadn’t noticed the man leaving.

Standing alone by the dish for a long moment, Yuri stared at his data on the screens and tried to recall the steps Ivan had taken to pull his file up on his laptop months ago. It hadn’t taken the younger boy long, all he’d really had to do was just jam in Yuri’s name—the hardest part had been getting through the security and from the looks of things, the technician had left the computer wide open for him.

Creeping around the divide and glancing out at the corridor through the window to check he wasn’t being watched, Yuri clipped his launcher back onto his belt and dropped his blade into his pocket, taking the technician’s abandoned seat. He clicked through screen after screen of his statistics and results, looking for anything that seemed like a search box. He had Boris’ name typed in a flash and couldn’t help but smirk when Boris’ blank face stared out at him a second later.

Numbers and medical notes shouted out to him but meant nothing as Yuri skimmed page after page of information. Boris was down in the labs, that he was certain of, but he’d hoped he would find _something_ on his friend’s file that gave away what they were doing to him.

He found nothing and slumped down in the chair, defeated. Boris’ file hadn’t been updated for weeks.

Ivan’s name was next, and Yuri jerked back in shock when the first search result showed that Ivan Papov was deceased. He swallowed thickly, racking his brain to remember Ivan’s patronymic and throwing every name that came to mind onto the keyboard. ‘Papov, Ivan Aleksandrovich’ showed a photo of a familiar face, the corner of Ivan’s lips twisted just slightly in the beginnings of a grin.

Yuri breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, the fact that Ivan’s file showed just as little new information as Boris’ became irrelevant when Yuri considered the possible alternative.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor and Yuri had the screens shut down and Wolborg spinning in the dish again in a heartbeat, forcing his breathing to even out as the technician returned to his station.

“That’s enough for today,” the man said, standing in the gap between the glass and the wall with his arms crossed. “I’ll input your results and run a comparison, though from the looks of things you need to work harder.”

Yuri nodded his agreement and murmured a thank you. He knew already that he wasn’t in top-form, could’ve told the technician that before he’d even entered the room, but he wasn’t going to argue about an early release from training.

He was at the door when the man at the computer caught his attention again. “You’ll be working with a new technician from tomorrow. A little friendly advice? Don’t slack, you won’t get away with it.”

After a brief evening meal where he made himself eat a little more than usual—the photo from his file in the storeroom burned onto his mind—Yuri’s feet automatically took him to the third floor. He paused with his hand on the door to 309, remembering with a feeling of regret that it wasn’t his room anymore.

Someone trudged up the stairwell behind him and Yuri glanced over his shoulder to watch Vasily drag himself past his own room, head bowed, and enter a door at the far end of the corridor. The boy hadn’t even acknowledged Yuri’s presence. He thought about following him, about listening to the conversation through the door, but then Yuri remembered his run-in with Sergei in the Abbey’s tunnels and decided against it. The letters in his jacket crumpled as he folded his arms around his chest, and he slowly climbed the next flight of stairs.

Throwing the pillow and sheets from the bottom bunk up to the top, Yuri kicked his boots off and curled himself into a tight cocoon. He drew the paper out, flattening it on his pillow, and carefully picked through to see what Sergei had handed to him. His birth certificate was there, as were Kai’s letters and the creased envelope they’d used and reused. But there was something new, something Yuri hadn’t seen; a new envelope, his name curled on the front in familiar handwriting.

Kai had sent him another letter.

Yuri gave a small gasp—Sergei had to have been in his room before Valkov tore it apart—and he suddenly realised that he didn’t really know the older boy at all.

It crossed his mind that perhaps he’d been looking at things in completely the wrong way. Vasily had always been the one to hand him Kai’s mail, had been the one to arrange to have his replies sent, had told him when the deliveries were and where to find his file. But at the same time, Sergei had been the one to redirect Yuri to someone else when Vasily was unavailable. When Vasily turned up in the training centre he’d gone to Sergei for help and it seemed—although Yuri hadn’t been in the room at the time—that Sergei hadn’t been pleased with whatever Vasily had been telling him and had put him in his place. Sergei had been the one watching over him since he’d first set foot in the Abbey, not Vasily, and it had been Sergei who had warned him when he was pushing too hard against Valkov’s authority.

Sergei had had told him about the room on the fourth floor when Yuri had been struggling with one of the other boys in his group, and had thrust Piotr into his care because he knew—he _knew_ —what Yuri would do to help him.

Whatever Yuri did, wherever he was, Sergei had always been in the background somewhere, watching, waiting, planning—but Yuri had always been too caught up in himself to take any notice.

No, he’d been wrong all along; Vasily was just the messenger, always had been. Sergei was the leader.

Sergei—calm, calculating, unemotional Sergei—effortlessly followed Valkov’s orders to the precise letter with one hand and ran the Abbey’s underground delivery network in complete secrecy with the other.

Biovolt’s supposedly perfect soldier had been picking the Abbey apart from the inside all along.


	27. Chapter 27

_Play along. I_ _’ve sent them_.

Kai hadn’t thought to inform him what he was supposed to be playing along with or who he’d sent, and Yuri had spent the last three days jumping at shadows and not saying a word to anyone as a result.

Valkov hadn’t been seen since Yuri had been woken up on the floor of his old room—now emptied down to the metal bed frame—and whispers had been flooding around the Abbey ever since. The Director’s summons had been urgent, Yuri had heard it and Sergei had confirmed it, and Valkov had apparently left immediately. Nobody knew why and the rumours stretched from dull and ordinary to ridiculously surreal.

Yuri spent his hours training in a daze, thoughts of Boris in the labs, of Ivan being tortured for information, Kai’s confusing letter and his revelation about Sergei all battling for dominance in his head, constantly undermined by the overwhelming exhaustion he’d still not managed to shake.

He watched his blade skim another lap around the rim of the dish, Wolborg baying above him. Her presence was a strong as ever, still trying to sooth him, still trying to offer comfort, but Yuri felt disconnected. Disjointed. As if he were a stranger trapped in his own body.

“Are you listening?” The gruff voice drew him back to the present, to the training room and the blading dish, and Yuri turned to face the burly man behind him; Aleksey Belkin, the man Valkov had assigned to follow him everywhere and watch his every move. The same guard who had all but dragged him from his room in his sleepwear and down to the basement. The reason he hadn’t been able to reply to Kai to ask any of the questions burning holes in his mind.

Yuri swallowed and turned his gaze to the floor. “Sorry.”

“You will be if you don’t pay attention. You were told to run the drill again.” Belkin jerked his thumb over his shoulder to direct Yuri’s attention to the technician behind the glass, another of Valkov’s specialist team disguised in a white coat and Yuri’s new personal trainer. He hadn’t caught the man’s name, or perhaps he had but just couldn’t remember.

He wasn’t even sure what was real anymore.

Nodding slowly, Yuri recalled his blade to his hand and locked her back into his launcher. Wolborg still shone above him, content to leave the protection of her shell if only to provide Yuri with some semblance of support. Yuri wouldn’t admit it, especially not to the two men behind him, but he was quietly impressed with his skill. Being able to call a bit-beast forward without launching its beyblade was something he had only seen a few boys achieve—Sergei being one of them—but the amount of energy required to do so was immense. The power a spinning blade produced made it so much easier, the energy coming from the beast itself rather than from the blader.

Yuri wondered whether Wolborg knew she was draining his strength by staying out of her chip, whether she had weighed up how tired he felt with how much he needed to see her, how much he needed to know she was there. She shone brighter when he launched his blade again and for a moment Yuri felt a little lighter.

The timer hit zero, the technician shouted at him to reload, and Yuri fired his blade again. The timer hit zero, the technician shouted at him, Yuri fired again. The timer hit zero, the technician shouted, Yuri fired. The timer hit zero, the technician shouted, Yuri’s numb fingers struggled to get his blade in the lock and his launch missed the dish by a mile.

A fist hit the back of his head and he crumpled to the floor, only vaguely stunned to realise it was the technician that had hit him, not Belkin. Wolborg vanished and Yuri closed his eyes, wishing for nothing more than to sleep. The man spat on the ground, told him he was weak and that he would be informing Valkov of his pitiful performance. Belkin lifted Yuri to his feet and set him at the side of the dish again, and the technician shouted at him to reload or he’d be spending the rest of his worthless life in isolation.

Yuri thought of Boris and remembered laughing with him when they were younger, hidden from sight under a market table in Saint Petersburg, huddled under stolen blankets, gorging on stolen food and wearing stolen clothes. Just the two of them, children fighting for survival in a world where the next day could easily have been their last, and yet still laughing as if they had nothing at all to worry about.

He wondered what had happened to those two boys, wondered when he’d last heard Boris laugh out of joy instead of misery. Out of happiness, not because it was the only thing keeping him sane.

Belkin tailed him through the corridors, the heavy sound of his boots against the stone hammering on Yuri’s skull and stamping his spirit into the ground. Valkov wasn’t taking any chances, the second Yuri put his foot just a fraction out of line, he knew Belkin would report him. Belkin may as well have been a second shadow.

He wanted to be thankful he wasn’t being followed by Levitsky, but the second the thought appeared he squashed it back down.

Yuri woke in the middle of the night, drenched in cold sweat and muffling a scream in the midst of a nightmare he couldn’t and didn’t want to remember. On a fold-out cot in the corner of the room, Belkin snored.

Acting on instinct alone, Yuri slid down from his bunk, shoved his bare feet into his boots and was out of the room, running through the Abbey in the dark with no idea where his legs were taking him. The stairwell up to the bedrooms in the West wing came into view and Yuri sprinted up it two steps at a time. He skidded to a halt outside 201 and raised his fist to knock, jerking his hand back when he remembered it was well after midnight.

He took a deep breath that did nothing to calm his nerves and pressed his ear up against the door. Silence. He glanced up and down the corridor, watching and listening intently for any sign of movement. Again, silence. Yuri laid his hand gently on the door handle and carefully pushed it open, sliding through the gap into the dark room and shutting it again with a soft click.

As his eyes adjusted, the only source of light in the room filtering through under the door as the window was boarded up, Yuri made out both sets of beds, one on the left and one on the right. On the left, he saw Oleg on the bottom and above him Vladislav, the boy Ivan had warned him away from. On the right, a figure he barely recognised lay on the bottom. The top bunk was empty and he hoped he wasn’t too late.

Yuri kept his gaze locked on Vladislav as he quietly approached the boy on his right, ready to bolt from the room if anyone showed any sign of waking. He knelt by the bottom bunk, freezing when Oleg murmured something in his sleep. Tentatively he reached out, his hand hovering over the nameless boy’s mouth for a second before he brought it down, startling the boy awake and muffling his shout. Yuri pressed his finger to his lips. The boy stared up at him, eyes wide, and nodded.

Movement from the other side of the room caught their attention and they both watched, neither daring to breathe, as Vladislav rolled over to face the wall. Yuri mouthed Ivan’s name and the boy shook his head solemnly, staring down at his hands for a moment before signalling two-one-eight in sequence with his fingers. Yuri understood easily enough, thanking him silently before creeping back out into the corridor.

He stood against the wall for a moment, trying in vain to gather his thoughts. Ivan was alive, that much was clear, though Yuri couldn’t even hazard a guess at what hid behind the door to room 218. Still, he had to check, had to see Ivan even if he couldn’t speak to him. He stood outside the room and pulled together his tattered shreds of courage. His hand shook on the door frame.

Ivan lay on the top bunk, the bottom was empty. Against the far wall, a guard slept on a fold-out cot. Yuri swallowed thickly and watched the rise and fall of the man’s chest. His boots lay at the foot of his cot beside his folded uniform jacket. He didn’t look as tall or as threatening as Belkin, but if Yuri’s suspicions were correct, then the guard was undoubtedly one of Valkov’s specialists.

He jumped when he realised Ivan was staring straight at him.

Wordlessly, the younger boy slid to the floor, pulling his sheets tight around his shoulders. He beckoned Yuri out of the room, led him silently down the corridor and through another door. The new room was pitch black, not quite big enough for them to stand opposite each other without Ivan’s bare feet hitting his boots, and Yuri heard Ivan rustling around at his side. A dim torch flickered to life a moment later. It was only in the light that Yuri realised Ivan’s face was a myriad of fading bruises; yellowing blotches that spread over his shoulders, under his shirt and down his arms.

Valkov’s work, Yuri was certain of it.

“Where’s your guard?” Ivan asked, his voice barely above a whisper. Yuri wanted to ask how Ivan knew about the man until it struck him that Belkin had followed him into the food hall and around the training centre—he would’ve been more surprised if Ivan _hadn_ _’t_ noticed.

“Asleep. We need to get out of here, Vanya. I don’t like this.” It was the first time he’d actually voiced it, and Yuri couldn’t have stopped his voice from wavering if he’d tried. What had started as tension hanging in the air had grown into full-on suffocation, Yuri couldn’t even breathe without feeling as though someone was watching him, taking notes. Notes that were then being fed back to Valkov.

Ivan shook his head, understanding settling on his face. He felt the same. “It’s over, captain. What can we do?” he said, one hand brushing through his hair and catching in the knots. “You’re being followed, so am I. I’m guessing Boris is as well. Everyone who’s ever got close to you is—”

“Are you saying this is _my_ fault?” Yuri spat angrily, ignoring Ivan’s desperate signal to keep his voice down. “I didn’t _ask_ for this to happen Vanya. I didn’t ask to be tortured, I didn’t ask for you to be beaten up, I didn’t _ask_ anyone to kill Borya!” Yuri smothered his face with his hands as tears sprung to his eyes and he crumpled to his knees on the floor. “This is wrong Vanya, this is so, so _wrong_.”

“Boris… _really_?” Horror seeped into Ivan’s expression, his eyes wide and haunted. Yuri could hear the fear in his words and for once didn’t want to berate him for it.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Valkov sent him to the labs. I think Barinov has him.” Ivan swore and kicked the wall behind him; everyone knew the rumours. “I don’t know what to do, Vanya.”

Silence hung in the tiny room, broken only by their quiet breathing. Ivan stared unseeing at a point above Yuri’s head as Yuri watched and waited, desperate for Ivan to offer advice, to help him, even though he knew there was nothing the boy could do.

“I think I can get out,” Ivan murmured eventually, eyes still staring at nothing. Fear and determination mingled as a grimace on his face. Yuri opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words. “I found a tunnel,” he continued quietly. “Not sure where it leads to but I think it runs under the fence. I need to check it out but there’s no way I can even get close with that guard stuck to me like a leech.”

Ivan hadn’t said it directly, but Yuri instantly picked up on the message—he needed a distraction. And even though Ivan himself had said that he was helping Yuri at his own expense, Yuri knew he still owed Ivan a favour. The younger boy knew the labyrinth under the Abbey better than anyone, and even if he wasn’t completely sure where it led, if he believed the tunnel he’d discovered went beyond the gates, then Yuri believed it did.

“I’ll see what I can do. I’ll need time.” It was a weak promise, but it was the best he could offer.

Ivan cracked the door open a fraction and didn’t look back at him. “I’m pretty sure that’s something we _don_ _’t_ have.”

When Yuri arrived back at his room, fear catching him at every corner, Belkin was still asleep on the cot. Yuri slipped off his boots and crept back to his bunk, curling up on his side. Ivan had left him with the name of a disgruntled engineer who, in Ivan’s words, favoured vodka more than his life, and the security code to a rifle storage room in the West wing basement. He’d made it perfectly clear that what Yuri could do whatever he wanted with the information, but Yuri still couldn’t shake the feeling that Ivan _expected_ him to do the unthinkable.

A year ago—no, six months ago—Yuri wouldn’t even have given the idea a second thought, would’ve just forgotten what Ivan had told him and pretended the conversation had never happened.

Now, with their lives teetering on the very edge, he wasn’t so sure.

He had another dream that night, one that he’d had before. He stood in a field of white, dressed in his tournament uniform with his launcher clipped to his belt and Wolborg heavy in his pocket. Snow fell from the grey sky, melting in his outstretched hand. He heard nothing but absolute silence.

The world around him flickered; his blade was spinning at his feet. Wolborg herself was shining above him, painting the sky and snow a pale blue.

And then the voice came. The same woman’s voice he’d heard before. He couldn’t see her, but he knew that she stood just beyond Wolborg’s glow. He couldn’t understand her words.

Haltingly he made his way forwards, his legs felt like lead. Wolborg moved with him; no matter how far he got, she was always the same distance away, always just out of reach. Yuri dropped to his knees, exhausted. His hands left bloody prints in the snow, deep red a striking contrast to the pure white. He couldn’t feel the cold.

The voice in his head grew louder, clearer, and was suddenly all around him.

_How much more_ _…_

Yuri glanced up at the great wolf in disbelief. “What?”

_Your hands_ _…_

He looked down and gagged, thick red covered his skin, rivulets working their way from his fingertips to his wrists, soaking the cuffs of his sleeves. The snow itself was bleeding. The smell of ash and smoke hung in the air and clogged in his throat. Yuri swallowed the swirl of nausea rising in his stomach and shouted at the sky.

“What do you want?”

He didn’t get a reply. The voice vanished, Wolborg disintegrated before his eyes in a flash of colour and Yuri was left alone. The snow around him was stained red.

He woke with a start, panting heavily and frantically scrabbling at the mattress to push himself from the bunk and onto the floor. He collapsed under the window and brought his hands up to his face, turning them over in the slither of moonlight creeping into the room. His skin was scarred but pale, not a trace of blood. He swiped at his face, damp with cold sweat. The code for the storage room rang in his head.

Belkin sat up on the edge of the cot, drew deeply on the cigarette pinched between his lips and smirked. “Enjoy your late-night walk, kid?”


	28. Chapter 28

For whatever reason—at the time, Yuri was too busy praising his luck to care—Belkin had let his blatant act of disobedience slide and hadn’t breathed a word to Valkov. Still, just because the guard hadn’t mentioned it since, didn’t mean Yuri wasn’t constantly alert, constantly on edge, waiting for some form of punishment.

When nearly a week came and went, and his only retribution was in the form of a sharp slap to the back of his head whenever Belkin wasn’t impressed by his training performance, Yuri started to wonder whether he’d overlooked something.

Belkin had been charged to watch his every move like a hawk, from the moment he opened his eyes in the morning to the moment he eventually, if ever, fell asleep. The slightest hint at anything unusual, out of the ordinary, anything that could vaguely be considered against the rules, was to be reported immediately to Valkov without a second thought. Yuri didn’t think he could’ve done anything _more_ prohibited than sneak out of his room after curfew, yet Belkin hadn’t said a single thing about it. But _why_?

It was raining heavily when Belkin lead him through the Abbey and up to Valkov’s office that evening, water pelting the single-pane windows so hard that Yuri thought they might cave and shatter. He could feel a flicker of pressure in his skull signalling an oncoming headache and wasn’t so much annoyed by it as he was surprised; they must have been nearing thunderstorm season, which meant the tournament finals had been nearly six months ago.

Had he really lost track of time that easily?

Yuri found himself standing in Valkov’s office, the man pacing back and forth in front of him whilst Belkin stood back, clearly bored, and the nine-digit security code Ivan had told him shifted through his head in time with Valkov’s footsteps. Yuri was still in two minds about whether he wanted to follow the boy’s unspoken suggestion. He knew where to find the engineer, knew when he could catch him alone, knew that all he needed to do was to say those nine numbers and that the engineer would take care of the rest.

Ivan’s guard would be called into action, as would Belkin, and they could both use the distraction to make their way through the unmapped tunnel and possibly escape. But then…

But then when Valkov found out, when he finally put two and two together—because the man already knew that he’d been working with Ivan to break into his office—the next place he would turn to would be the people Yuri had been closest to. The people who had helped him escape would be the ones facing Valkov’s wrath; Sergei and Vasily, and Boris…

He still wasn’t sure what had happened to Boris, but knew for a fact that he couldn’t leave him behind.

Valkov stopped pacing and Yuri instantly raised his head, standing rigid with his eyes forward, schooling his expression into a blank mask and smothering his concerned frown. A minute passed as Valkov did nothing but stare, and just as Yuri’s chest started to ache, Valkov moved away and released his invisible grip on Yuri’s lungs.

The man dropped heavily into his seat and took a phone call whilst Yuri waited, speaking in a foreign language; Yuri caught his name but nothing else. He heard Belkin sigh and spotted the man’s reflection in the window behind Valkov’s desk, inspecting the back of his hand. When Valkov set the receiver down, Belkin jumped to attention.

Not that Valkov noticed. In fact, they may as well have not been in the office at all. Valkov scribbled notes in a hardback book and picked up the receiver again, jamming his thumb on the keys. The dial tone echoed endlessly in the silence of the room and Yuri fought the urge to sigh as Valkov slammed it back down.

There was a sense of urgency to his actions, Yuri realised, something in the way his eyes jumped from his notes to the phone, the way the pen in his hand scratched haphazardly over the pad so quickly that Yuri could’ve sworn all Valkov had written was nonsense. Something had set the man on edge, and it wasn’t without a sense of foreboding that Yuri guessed what it might be.

Kai’s words echoed in his ears; _play along, I_ _’ve sent them._

But sent _who_?

The door behind him opened and Yuri glanced at the window again to see Levitsky march into the office, announcing that ‘it’ was ready. He couldn’t fathom what ‘it’ could be, though he was certain it wasn’t going to be pleasant. Valkov nodded his acknowledgement and dismissed Levitsky without looking up from his work. Yuri saw him stop just short of the door as he spotted Belkin leaning casually against the wall. Levitsky’s eyes narrowed, his fists clenched. Belkin smirked.

When he left, slamming the door behind him, Belkin caught Yuri’s confused gaze and winked—Yuri’s head shot back to Valkov so quickly his neck clicked.

Watching Valkov shuffle paper around on his desk, Yuri replayed the scene in his head. It didn’t take a genius to work out that there was no love lost between the two men; the disgust they shared of each other was so obvious he could almost touch it. He chewed his lip and wondered whether there was any way he could use them against each other. Their loyalty to Valkov was unquestionable, true, but Yuri knew that the hierarchy amongst the guards wasn’t too dissimilar to the boys in the Abbey; the only way to get to the top was by climbing over those weaker than you. Levitsky was Valkov’s personal bodyguard—he was sure that Belkin would jump at the opportunity to take Levitsky’s place.

And if Yuri could help Belkin achieve that, perhaps he could manipulate the man into doing something for him in return. Of course, he would need to pay off his current debt to the guard first; Belkin would want _something_ in return for staying silent, Yuri knew that much.

Valkov lead him out of the office without saying a word, a thin folder tucked under one arm. Yuri’s uniformed shadow followed close behind.

He was taken down to the communal showers, empty aside from a lone rat Yuri spotted scurrying to a far off corner, and was more than a little concerned when Valkov ordered him to strip. He turned to the men behind him, eyes darting between Valkov's intimidating scowl, the disgust plastered over Levitsky's face and the sheer blankness on Belkin's—who towered over both of them—and his mouth suddenly felt as dry as sand.  
  
He'd heard about things like this happening before, rumours and stories that always brought bile to his throat and left him feeling sick. If he screamed, would anyone hear him?  
  
Valkov became annoyed, barking the order again and moving closer to do the job himself. Yuri yelped and jumped away, slipping on the wet tiles and crashing against the wall below a shower unit. Freezing water drenched through to his skin when he accidentally hit the button and he gasped a breath.  
  
He could see the exit straight ahead of him, the three men apparently momentarily stunned that he'd switched the shower on and none of them willing to get themselves wet. If he sprinted for the door now, would the element of surprise give him a big enough head start? Levitsky, smaller than Belkin though not by much, looked the sort of man who would be quick on his feet.  
  
If he ran, where could he run to?  
  
Yuri's heart thudded erratically in his ears, panic winding itself in tight coils around his chest. The spatter of the water pouring from the shower echoed around him like a thunderstorm.  
  
Valkov pinched the bridge of his nose impatiently and levelled his gaze on Yuri, rage bubbling in his eyes. Yuri swallowed thickly, forced a blanket of nothingness over the turmoil in his mind, and counted down the seconds until the shower cut out—the moment it stopped, he would run.  
  
"Let's not make this difficult, Ivanov," Valkov said, though it was clear he was giving an order, not advice. "You either do as you're told whilst you're still aware of what's going on, or we'll just do this with you unconscious."  
  
"No—" Yuri's throat closed up and strangled the rest of his words; pleas for Valkov to change his mind, to do something else to him, anything but this. The admission that he'd been the one that had stolen from his office, that he'd sent the files to Kai, that Kai was planning to bring Biovolt down all gathered at the tip of his tongue, tearing him in two as to whether getting both himself and Kai most likely killed was better than what Valkov was planning to do to him.  
  
Levitsky growled, gesturing to Yuri with one arm, and Yuri only then noticed the small paper bag in his right hand. "Sir, we don't have time for this."  
  
"Quiet," Valkov ordered, turning his attention back to Yuri with an unimpressed frown. "Ivanov, get out of the water now before I drag you out."  
  
Three, two, _one_.  
  
The shower cut off, Yuri planted one foot back against the wall and pushed off it, his sight set on the exit in the distance. Belkin reacted first, his arm shooting out to snatch Yuri around his waist, and Yuri yelled at the top of his lungs, kicking and punching, flailing his arms and legs wildly as he was dragged down to the floor.  


Hands held his wrists and pushed his shoulders into the ground, someone gripped his neck and held it still. Yuri heard the electrical whirr of a machine somewhere to his left and screamed.  
  
Fingers tangled in his hair and shoved downward, his forehead rebounding off the tiled floor with a thud. His headache flared with white-hot pain, light flashed briefly in his vision, and then everything blacked out.

* * *

Yuri felt… _strange_ , he realised slowly. Slightly numb, slightly unfocused, light-headed; not in the usual sense, but more as if an actual physical weight had disappeared. He tried to lift his hand to his head but found it wouldn’t move. He flexed his fingers, felt his nails catch on something—wood?—a chair? Rough material rubbed against his wrist as he tried again, the feeling registering sluggishly in his mind.

He was tied down.

He tested his legs, raising his knees and pressing his toes into the ground. His ankles weren’t bound. A distant sense of pain gnawed at his head as panic settled in his stomach. He felt cold and wet, he realised. Why were his clothes wet?

Yuri’s eyes flew open and a shocked gasp wrenched from his lips as the memory ploughed into him; the showers, Valkov, the two guards—Valkov’s order for him to strip, getting drenched in the freezing water. He stamped down on nausea and tried to focus his mind inward, relieved to find only a dull throb of pain in his forehead and the ghost of a crushing pressure on his wrists, nothing else.

“So, sleeping beauty finally woke up.”

Yuri jumped at the sound of Belkin’s voice, twisting his head to stare up at the man standing behind him. Belkin smirked, lazily moving to sit on the bench in Yuri’s line of sight, gathering a half-empty water bottle from the ground and taking a loud gulp. Yuri tried to swallow, his mouth unbelievably dry, and he wondered whether Belkin would offer the water if he asked for it before he shook the notion from his head.

Taking a deep breath, Yuri spared a quick glance at his surroundings. He was still in the shower room, trapped in a chair in the dressing area. From the corner of his eye, Yuri watched Belkin down the last of the water, crushing the bottle in his fist and dropping it to the floor. The guard didn’t quite look as though he was about to talk and Yuri didn’t quite trust himself to speak.

The silence between them was almost deafening.

All too slowly, Yuri registered something else. A smell, something chemical, almost like the cleaning fluid used in the medical ward. His scalp itched, and once again Yuri tried to lift his hands to his head and failed.

“Really wouldn’t touch it, kid,” Belkin said, settling back on the bench and crossing his legs at the ankles, refusing to elaborate further.

Yuri drew another deep breath; barely managing not to gag as the smell suddenly overpowered his senses and burned his throat. “Untie me,” he said quietly.

Belkin merely chuckled in response. “I don’t think so.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and ducked his head against his chest, racking his brain for something, _anything_ , that might shed light on what happened after he’d blacked out. A small part of him wished he’d had another seizure, wished that whatever Biovolt had done to his mind had kicked in, because at least then he might be able to remember snippets of conversation.

He cautiously glanced up at Belkin again and tried a different approach. “What did you do?” A breeze caught the back of Yuri’s neck and he shivered despite himself. And then it hit him.

The reason his head felt lighter. The reason his vision seemed… _wrong_.

His hair had been cut.

Yuri couldn’t help the muted whine that escaped him, jerking his head down lower in the hopes that the stubborn red strands he’d become so used to would miraculously appear again. They didn’t. He’d had his hair cut before—not by a barber, of course, but a guard armed with scissors—but Valkov had always instructed them to keep to the same style. Biovolt didn’t just want its main team to win tournaments, they had to stand out, to make an impact; a concept Yuri had merely checked off as another of Valkov’s insane eccentricities and never thought any more of. The garish tournament uniforms he was forced to wear were an annoyance, yes, but he had more important things to worry about.

His mind struggled to come up with a reason for the sudden change.

A light snicker caught his attention, and he couldn’t help but glare over at Belkin as the man stretched his arms upwards. Belkin wasn’t perturbed by the expression, and if Yuri hadn’t been so caught up in trying to put together an explanation for Valkov’s recent decision, he might have been thankful that Belkin hadn’t chosen to punish him for it.

“It’ll look better once it’s finished,” Belkin said, and Yuri stared, waiting for him to continue. Fishing in his pocket, Belkin drew out his slim silver tin and plucked a cigarette from it, striking a match and lighting the end. “Looked like a little girl before.”

Yuri bit down on his tongue and refused to rise to the insult. The itching at the base of his neck and around his ears was getting more and more difficult to ignore, and against his better judgement Yuri threw his head back, trying to make contact with the back of the chair. He growled in frustration when he couldn’t reach.

Belkin looked as though he was about to speak again when the door at the end of the room banged open, Levitsky marching in and dumping a pile of fresh clothes on an empty bench before taking a seat beside them. The two guards waited in silence, Belkin leaning against the wall with his hands folded behind his head, cigarette hanging limp from his lips, Levitsky sat straight-backed with his arms crossed over his chest.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, wasn’t even sure what they were waiting for, but when Yuri quietly asked how much longer they would be, Levitsky gave his chair a swift kick that nearly toppled it over and told him to shut his mouth.

Closing his eyes again, Yuri imagined himself at the edge of the dish, Wolborg locked in his launcher, arms stretched before him. Just himself, his blade, his focus concentrated on the single action; ready, aim, fire. He felt his body tense, the ghost of Wolborg’s power surging through him. It wasn’t the real thing, his blade was up in his room on the fourth floor, but it was enough to trick his mind into a sense of calm and dampen the raging emotions he was feeling.

The clothes at Levitsky’s side were a dull brown; a new training uniform to replace the one Yuri had soaked in the shower. The wrong colour as before, only this time Yuri couldn’t blame it on the waning memory of the old guard manning the storeroom. Levitsky, of all people, would have known he should be dressed in grey.

Valkov had made a point of the main team being memorable, of ensuring they stood out from the crowd because he wanted the outside world to recognise them instantly, know who they were and what they represented. Yuri knew that even without the orange and white the man had put him in, anyone who knew anything about the beyblade sport would be able to identify him by his hair; his ’devil horns’, according to the media.

Was that the point? To make Yuri look as ordinary and as inconspicuous as possible? To pass him off as just another boy, no different to any of the others at the Abbey? A disguise?

It was the best excuse Yuri could come up with, but he was still no closer to working out _why_ —who exactly was Valkov trying to hide him from?

Without warning, Levitsky flung out his arm and shook his watch free of his cuff, clicking his tongue at the time and nodding wordlessly at Belkin. The other guard sighed, stubbing out his cigarette on the ground with his heel and pushing himself to his feet.

“Don’t try anything stupid,” Belkin said, his tone edging between gentle and threatening. Yuri nodded, but wasn’t quite able to stop his eyes flicking to the main doors again. Levitsky noticed and stood up to block his view.

Belkin untied his wrists, his grip around Yuri’s upper arm the only thing stopping him stumbling when his knees threatened to give way. He was deposited roughly under the shower again, trembling slightly from the cold, waiting on baited breath as Belkin stepped back to remove his uniform jacket and shirt. He paused for a half-moment, and then stripped off his vest as well, and Yuri immediately ducked his eyes to the floor.

“Bring him up to the office when you’re done,” Levitsky ordered, his echoing footsteps followed by the clang of the main door.

Belkin gave a rough sigh that sounded more like boredom than frustration, and Yuri closed his eyes as he was herded back further against the wall by Belkin’s body, throwing out a hand behind him this time before he hit the button. He heard Belkin move, heard the metallic creak of the shower head twisting, and barely had a second to prepare himself before Belkin’s arm shot around him and switched on the water.

Without asking for permission, Belkin roughly ran his hands over Yuri’s skull, lathering the water in his hair as if he were trying to rinse it clean. Yuri cracked open one eye, biting down on the inside of his cheek as Belkin none-too-gently titled his head to the side, and frowned as black liquid splattered over the man’s bare chest.

He made the mistake of glancing up, wondering exactly what Belkin was trying to rinse out. The water stung as it flooded his eyes and Yuri gasped, hurriedly pressing the heels of his palms over them and wincing at the pain. Belkin muttered something above him, grabbing hold of his shoulder to turn him around before forcing his chin up. He pulled Yuri’s hands away and told him to open his eyes, and Yuri squinted at the blurry outline of the shower head as the water washed over his face.

“This would’ve been so much quicker if you’d just done as you were told,” Belkin said when the shower cut out, reaching over again to restart it without waiting for a response. His fingers threading through Yuri’s hair again and rubbing out whatever foul-smelling mixture was there.

Yuri could feel that his hair was barely a few inches long now, but he didn’t grasp the full extent of the change until he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the metal shower pole and barely recognised himself.

The red was gone completely—his hair had been coloured jet black.

He jerked away from the wall in shock, accidentally stumbling into Belkin, and the man’s heavy hands landed on his shoulders to keep him upright.

“What’s going on?” Yuri asked desperately, his voice wavering despite his effort to keep it steady.

Belkin said nothing until the water stopped again, this time not bothering to restart it. “You’ll find out soon.” He backed away, leaving Yuri stood in his soaking clothes, staring wide-eyed at the distorted reflection that looked nothing like him.

He still hadn’t been able to get his head around it by the time he’d changed into fresh clothes—on the other side of the room to where Belkin was pulling on dry uniform—and the guard had to call his name twice from the doors before Yuri’s body jumped into action.

He followed Belkin silently through the corridors, up onto the fourth floor in the centre of the Abbey. Levitsky was waiting for them, stood stiffly outside Valkov’s door, and he gave Yuri a brief once over before all but shoving him through.

Valkov sat behind his desk, just as he had been when Yuri had arrived earlier. He looked tired, Yuri noticed, weary, as if he’d been working too much—he swallowed down his laughter at how stupid his thoughts sounded. Valkov didn’t know the meaning of hard work.

"Yuri Ivanov returned home his father in Saint Petersburg a month ago, is that clear?" Valkov said abruptly, not bothering to look up from his work and catching Yuri off-guard.

"Yes sir." The memory of his father’s face flickered in Yuri’s mind and he begged it to go away.

"You are Dmitry Ivanovich Smirnov, you are 15 years old, and you are an orphan. You were found in the Sokol District in Moscow and you have been here for ten years. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir," Yuri said again, realising that Dmitry was the name to match his disguise. Valkov didn’t just want him to _look_ like someone else, he was supposed to _be_ someone else.

"Then repeat it to me.”

A confused sound slipped from Yuri’s mouth before he could stop it and he gulped, fishing around in his mind for the words Valkov had just said before they became smothered. "My name is Dmitry Ivanovich Smirnov, I'm 15 and I've been here for ten years. I was found in the…"

"Sokol District."

"The Sokol District,” Yuri repeated, “I'm an orphan, sir."

"Good. Now leave." Valkov’s demand was punctuated by a flick of his wrist, and Yuri didn’t even wait for Belkin or Levitsky to move before forcing himself out into the corridor.

The murmur of voices in the room continued, but sounded distant to Yuri’s ears. Dmitry Smirnov… the name sounded familiar, and Yuri tried to piece together a face in his mind—something that resembled his reflection. He came up with nothing but a gaping blank that was quickly flooded by a hundred other thoughts.

 _Play along. I_ _’ve sent them_.

He’d lost count of the number of times he’d mentally pleaded for Kai to tell him who he’d sent, but it didn’t stop him from asking again.

Valkov needed to disguise him, not only that, but to apparently remove Yuri Ivanov from the Abbey completely. He’d been given someone else’s name, and the fact that Yuri vaguely recognised it gave him the impression that it must have been a boy who had been at the Abbey in the past. He couldn’t tell what, but something was screaming at him that Dmitry Smirnov—the real one—had vanished a long time ago.

So he’d been given someone else’s _identity_. They would still have old files on the system, surely it wouldn’t have been that difficult for the technicians to manipulate the records to make it look like Yuri Ivanov had left and that Dmitry had been at the Abbey all along.

Yuri absently ran his fingers through his still damp hair, scratching the short spikes at the nape of his neck. A chill racked his body and he shivered despite himself. The door behind him opened and Yuri looked up to catch Belkin nod his head at the end of the corridor. Yuri followed without a word.

Who was Valkov trying to fool?


	29. Chapter 29

The following day passed like a blur. No sooner had Yuri woken up and realised that his experience in the shower room hadn’t been a dream, he was already being escorted back to his room after his final training session.

Belkin had barely said a word to him all day, unless he’d been too unfocused to notice, and fact that everyone seemed to act as if they didn’t recognise him was starting to set Yuri’s nerves on fire. He had passed other boys in the corridors, practised with them in the training centre, accidentally caught their eye in the food hall, _nothing_. Nobody even sent a curious glance his way, surely the fact that they _didn_ _’t_ recognise him should have made them wonder who he was?

He took a deep, grounding breath as he toed off his boots and yanked the sheets down from the top bunk to wrap them around his shoulders, making his way to the window—the board removed thanks to Belkin—and leaning his face against the cool glass.

Did he really look that different? Nine years of building a reputation in the Abbey, nine years of working his way to the top and making it glaringly obvious that he deserved to be there, and all it took was scissors and a change of hair colour to wipe everyone’s memory clean.

How could they not tell it was _him_?

He heard the click of Belkin’s cigarette tin behind him and the fold-out cot creaked under the man’s weight. Belkin joined him a moment later, exhaling smoke and fogging up the glass. Yuri wiped it dry with the sheet and Belkin laughed, giving Yuri’s short hair a patronising ruffle.

“When the weather’s good you can see my house from here,” Belkin murmured absently, raising his arm to rest against the edge of the window. “Well, I say that, ex-wife owns the place now. Took practically everything in the divorce.”

A moment ago Yuri had been mourning the loss of Belkin’s inane chatter, something to fill the silence and give him something to focus on other than his own confusing thoughts. Belkin was clearly trying to start up a conversation that Yuri didn’t want to be involved in, and part of him wished to have the silence back.

“You’re allowed to speak, you know.” The man took another drag of his cigarette and tilted his neck to exhale over the top of Yuri’s head. Yuri couldn’t tell whether it was for his benefit or not. “Gets pretty dull talking to myself.”

Yuri wanted to retort that he didn’t usually seem bothered by the sound of his own voice, but instead blurted something else entirely. “What’s a ‘divorce’?”

Belkin looked down at him with his eyebrows raised, chuckling and shaking his head. Yuri huffed a breath and jerked back from the window, kicking one of his boots across the floor as he made his way to his bunk. Belkin waited until he’d folded himself under his sheets before he spoke again. “Don’t get annoyed, kid. I forgot they don’t teach you much here.”

“Hardly my fault,” Yuri grumbled, pulling the sheets tighter around his head and burying his face in his pillow, anything to block out the man’s mocking voice.

“Never said it was,” Belkin said, his tone completely serious, “you going to come down from there or what?”

Yuri’s only response was to shuffle deeper into his bedding. He heard Belkin sigh, the cot creaked again, and the room fell into silence.

He tried to sleep, he really did. Tried to push every nagging thought and emotion from his mind, tried to imagine himself standing out in the snow, alone but not cold. Tried to remember what feeling peaceful and relaxed was like. Someone out in the distance hummed and the noise bounced from the snow, breaking the silence. Belkin’s damned humming.

The second the man’s name crossed his mind, Yuri found himself wondering what Belkin’s house looked like. Whether it was warm, comforting, welcoming, everything his own home back in Saint Petersburg had never been. He thought of Belkin’s ex-wife, wondered if the man had a family, had a life _outside_ of the Abbey’s walls. He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head, hating the way his hair scratched at the pillow.

His own family was on the brink of being shattered. And the only thing—the only person—he could rely on to save them was out in the city somewhere, waiting for something to happen, waiting for Yuri to play his part. But he hadn’t been told what his part was. Yuri shook his head again; sleep was a far off glimmer that he knew he would never be able to reach.

He reluctantly slid to the floor and perched on the very edge of the bottom mattress, scowling at Belkin and daring him to comment on it. He’d come down from his bunk because he couldn’t sleep, not because Belkin was bored and wanted to talk. The man on the cot said nothing, leaving the room in an awkward, uncomfortable silence.

“What’s it like?” Yuri asked eventually, nodding towards the cigarette in Belkin’s hand when all he got in response was a confused expression. “Smoking.”

“Why, want to try it?”

Yuri drew his bottom lip between his teeth, uncertainty pulling at his face. He was curious, but accepting something from a guard was like accepting something from Death himself; risky and unheard of.

Belkin shrugged. “I’m sure you’re underage but what the hell. Not like you’ll be getting out of this place anytime soon.” He cracked open his tin again, plucked out a cigarette, and held both it and the box of matches out to Yuri in his upturned palm.

Glancing from Belkin’s hand to his face and back again, Yuri swallowed down his fear, shoved the off-hand comment to the back of his mind, and snatched the items from him. He clenched the cigarette between his lips, struck a fresh match against the side of the box as he’d seen Belkin do, held the flame to the tip and inhaled.

The reaction was instantaneous; Yuri gagged and coughed, spluttering into his hand as smoke wafted from his mouth and nostrils. His eyes watered, his chest ached and he could feel his face burning bright red. Belkin laughed like he’d just heard the most hilarious joke, slapping his thigh with his palm. Without thinking, Yuri grabbed the matches and threw them at him. He expected a hit in retaliation, but Belkin only laughed harder.

Yuri’s lips twitched with a smile even as he tried to suppress it and he coughed again, clearing his throat. He focused on the window and refused to meet Belkin’s eyes as his laughter dissolved into snickering, he felt humiliated enough as it was even though it was his own fault, but to actually allow himself to _smile_ because of it would’ve been ridiculous,

A beat passed, and from the corner of his eye Yuri noticed that Belkin’s smirk had turned dangerous.

“I think it’s about time I claim that favour you owe me.”

* * *

Yuri was silent as he crept down the stairwell, replaying Belkin’s ridiculous request over and over in his mind. The man wanted payment for his silence and Yuri was in no position to refuse; if Belkin informed Valkov that he’d been running around after curfew, Yuri didn’t even want to imagine what his reaction would be.

It wasn’t the fact that Belkin wanted something in return that concerned Yuri, no, he was used to the concept of blackmail, it was _what_ the man wanted that concerned him. Without really thinking about it, too afraid by the possibility of his secret being revealed, Yuri had agreed to sneak down to the storage rooms near the back of the Abbey to get it.

Whiskey. Yuri was risking his life for a _bottle of whiskey_. He almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it.

Yuri stopped at the end of the corridor leading to the food hall and breathed. A dim light shone through the glass pane in the door. Belkin had said that there wouldn’t be anyone inside so late at night, the only people he needed to worry about were patrolling guards, but Yuri knew that he couldn’t really trust the man, no matter how much he wanted to, because Belkin was still one of the Abbey’s guards. One of Valkov’s _personal_ guards.

Belkin could have been sending him straight into a trap.

He took another deep breath, held it and released it slowly, closing his eyes and focusing on the action. If he went back to his room empty handed, Belkin would hand him straight to Valkov. If he got caught by a patrol, he would be handed straight to Valkov. If he managed to get into the store room and find the bottle Belkin had asked for, if he could make Belkin believe that he was easily manipulated, then perhaps Belkin would want to keep him around.

And _that_ was something Yuri could work with; the decision was simple.

Yuri ducked and all but ran past the door to the hall, his boots skidding as he swerved right. He followed the next corridor to the end, took another right, and slammed his hands up against the wall to stop his face from colliding with it. First door on the left, Belkin had told him. Yuri gently tested the handle, found it to be unlocked, and spared one last glance around before sliding into the pitch black beyond.

He gagged as he was hit by the stench of decay, so pungent that he almost twisted back out of the room. He swallowed thickly, holding his shirt over his nose with one hand and feeling his way forward with the other. His fingers brushed from stone to wood—another door—and without a second thought Yuri cracked it open and stepped through.

Light filtered through a single dirty window in the second room. Yuri pressed his back to the door and waited for his eyes to adjust, cautiously pulling his hand from his face and thankfully breathing cleaner air. Dark shapes came into focus, morphing into rows upon rows of shelving units stacked ceiling-high with boxes and bottles. The kitchen store room; he’d only seen it before through the hatch at the back of the food hall, and even then he hadn’t been stood around for long enough to get a proper look.

His steps echoed from the tiled floor and without too much thought, Yuri quickly knelt down to unlace his boots, tucking them up by the door and leaving himself barefoot. He crept around the shelves, shoving his curiosity down; he was here to get the whiskey for Belkin, nothing else.

He couldn’t quite stop his eyes from roaming the boxes and containers as he passed them, couldn’t quite stop his fingers from reaching out to brush over labels and skim across loaves of bread and fruits that he hadn’t tasted for a long time. He couldn’t quite ignore the pang of hunger in his gut.

Belkin had seen the meals they were given, he could hardly blame him for wanting more.

Before he knew it he was scrabbling around the shelves, snatching whatever food he could and forcing it into his mouth and his pockets. He ended up on his knees on the floor, surrounded by crumbs and half-empty packaging, digging his teeth into a cool, crisp apple as if he hadn’t eaten for years. He leaned forwards, gently resting his forehead on the edge of a shelf and closing his eyes, savouring the taste on his tongue.

Memories threatened to surface—Boris and himself running through the streets, the food they’d stolen—but he pushed them aside.

He made his way over to the window, using his sleeve to wipe away the grime so he could stare outside. The spotlights picked out nothing but brambles and trees, and Yuri spotted a fox darting after shadows in the distance. He couldn’t see the iron fence, either it was too far away or it had melted into the darkness where the lights couldn’t reach, but for a moment, Yuri allowed himself to believe that it didn’t exist at all.

His thoughts shifted to Kai, to the cryptic message he was still no closer to understanding. As far as he was aware, the Abbey rarely received visitors, at least none that he could see being useful to Kai. The only people he could think of were inspectors, but they were always arranged through the Director and Yuri couldn’t come up with any valid reason for Kai to speak to his grandfather about them; if anything, Kai was trying to keep his plans as much of a secret from his grandfather as possible.

Something sharp jabbed the roof of his mouth, jerking Yuri from his thoughts, and he brought his hand to his lips to spit out the offending apple pips. He’d eaten straight through to the core without noticing, apparently, and realised slowly that he didn’t really have anywhere to put it. Sighing, he dropped the core into his pocket and carefully picked his way over the rubbish he’d left on the ground, using his foot to brush most of the crumbs under the shelf. Belkin was probably starting to wonder where he was.

Yuri stood in front of shelves packed with glass bottles and tried to scrape together what little he could remember of the Latin alphabet. Belkin wanted ‘White Horse’, though Yuri could barely imagine what the foreign words looked like in his mind. He scanned the labels quickly, gritting his teeth in frustration when he realised he had no idea how to read them.

He grabbed a bottle at random, raising it up to his face to check the reverse, hoping that by some miracle he would find Russian written _somewhere_. No luck. He tried another, then another, until eventually the smallest logo caught his eye; a little white horse.

Giving a muted sigh of relief, Yuri collected the whiskey from above his head and was about to tuck it under his shirt when a bright light suddenly flooded the room. Yuri instantly dropped to the floor, clutching the bottle tightly to his chest, and squeezed his body under the lowest shelf.

Voices filtered in with the light, and Yuri cautiously peeked out from his hiding place to see that the hatch had been opened. The silhouette of a man stood on the other side, his elongated shadow stretching along the floor, and Yuri picked out the sound of glass clinking against glass. His face was smothered in darkness, but Yuri was almost certain he knew who it was.

“Hey Pasha, why have they got Belkin watching him, anyway? I thought that was your job?” A male voice Yuri didn’t recognise sounded from the hall and the figure by the hatch huffed impatiently.

“Because someone has to make sure Barinov’s latest experiment doesn’t escape.” Dread settled in Yuri’s gut; no more than a few metres away from him stood Levitsky. The guard glanced back over his shoulder and the light caught his face, confirming that Yuri had correctly identified his voice. A bubble of laughter brushed Yuri’s ears and his dread suddenly morphed into anger. He bit down on his lip and forced himself to listen.

“Who’s he got down there again?” A new voice, younger than the first, Yuri wasn’t sure whether he’d heard it before or not.

“The Kuznetsov boy… what’s his name?”

“Boris Mikhailovich.” Yuri muffled a gasp with his hand; _that_ voice he recognised. The older scientist in the lab, the one who had been involved with whatever sickening experiment Yuri had gone through. The one who had left him with brain damage. The man gave a nonchalant grunt and continued. “They’re still trying to decide what to do with him next week, though I doubt he’ll last until then.”

“He’ll be harder to cover up than Ivanov, can’t keep his damn mouth shut,” Levitsky said, earning another wave of laughter. Yuri blanched, what were they planning on doing to him?

“I say just kill him and be done with.” No. No, they _wouldn_ _’t_ —surely Boris hadn’t been sent back to the labs just to be tested on until it killed him. Valkov had spent time and effort and money on Boris’ training, Yuri had read it in his file, surely the man wouldn’t let that go to waste, surely— “Valkov doesn’t need him anymore, right? I heard his training was a complete failure.”

“Have _you_ tried convincing Barinov to give someone up before he was ready?” The scientist scoffed, a sound that gave Yuri both hope and fear. “If they killed Kuznetsov now, he’d throw a fit.”

“That crazy bastard should be locked up.” There was a murmur of agreement between the men in the room that settled like lead in Yuri’s stomach.

“Who, Kuznetsov? He’s just a kid.”

“No, _Barinov,_ idiot. And since when have you cared about the kids in this place?” The scientist snapped, the older guard snickered quietly. Yuri felt sick, but he couldn’t stop listening.

Shifting slightly, he reached down to pull the whiskey out from under his chest so that he could move a little closer to the hatch. The bottle clinked on the ground, both Yuri and Levitsky’s silhouette froze.

“Something wrong, Pasha?” The scientist’s voice came closer, and a second shadow stretched along the floor. Yuri slid further back under the shelf.

He vaguely registered in the back of his mind that the men in the hall were referring to Levitsky as ‘Pasha’—were they all friends? Levitsky’s most trusted guards? It explained why the scientist had been able to frighten Sidorov in the lab so easily.

“Bottle’s finished,” Levitsky said, “I’ll get another.”

“Get whiskey this time, I’m sick of vodka.”

Yuri’s gut clenched as Levitsky huffed a breath and pulled himself through the hatch, landing heavily on his feet. “And you call yourself Russian.”

Instinctively swiping his hair from his face—a useless gesture considering it was now so short—Yuri quickly glanced around for somewhere else to hide. Levitsky was looking for alcohol and he was lying right underneath it. The man disappeared behind another unit, rustling plastic packaging, and Yuri dove for the next shelf, rolled under, and came up to a crouch on the other side.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted the mess he’d made on the floor. He bit down on his lip to stifle his muffled whine of panic. If Levitsky noticed the crumbs, he would know there was someone else in the room with him. If Levitsky found him, everything was over.

Unless… unless he could convince the man that Belkin had sent him—which was the truth—but who was he more likely to believe?

Outside in the hall, the voices carried on unaware. “I happen to like whiskey, thank you.”

“The only other person I know that drinks it is that old bastard in the uniform stores.”

Levitsky sighed and Yuri held his breath as the man’s boots stopped next to him. He watched as Levitsky scanned the shelves, dragging his hand over the bottles and skipping the gap were the White Horse had been—Yuri gripped it tighter to his side—then Levitsky stopped, abruptly stood up, and snatched two bottles of premium vodka.

Yuri exhaled slowly, shuffling forwards on his hands and knees to watch the man make his way back to the hatch.

“Belkin likes whisk—”

“Belkin’s a coward,” Levitsky growled as he set the bottles down on the counter and heaved himself back out into the hall. “The sooner he mucks up with Ivanov, the sooner I can get rid of him.”

“I’ll drink to that.” The men outside cheered and the hatch was slammed shut, sending the room back into darkness.

Yuri stayed frozen by the shelf, the voices were muffled and he strained his ears to try and continue listening but it was no use. He carefully unfolded from his hiding place and pushed himself to his feet, the whiskey bottle clenched tightly in his hand.

What had he just heard?

Proof that Levitsky and Belkin hated each other. Levitsky probably saw Belkin as a threat which explained why he was looking for the opportunity to get rid of him. Belkin probably wanted Levitsky’s job; as soon as Levitsky slipped up, Belkin could easily swoop in and take his place. _That_ information Yuri could use, and he filed it at the back of his mind; by sending Yuri out to steal for him, he’d given Yuri something to use as blackmail.

And something else… something was happening in a week, the scientist had said. He was in danger, of what he wasn’t sure, but it had something to do with his change of identity.

They were going to kill Boris because of it.

He needed to tell someone.

_Sergei._

He was leaning against the wall in the third floor corridor before he’d even realised he was moving. The last thing he could recall was jamming his feet back into his boots, he couldn’t even remember passing through the room with the rotten smell, not sure whether he’d blacked-out or simply hadn’t been paying attention. His legs ached and his heart thumped loudly in his chest, he must have sprinted through the Abbey and up the stairs.

Voices filtered through from Sergei and Vasily’s room. Quiet and muffled, but clearly agitated, clearly arguing. Steeling himself for anything, Yuri tightened his grip on the neck of the whiskey bottle and slowly moved forward until he was inches from the door.

“—admit it; you took on too much and now you've lost control." Vasily’s voice was wild, upset, his words jumbling over each other as they rushed from his mouth. Yuri wished he had arrived earlier, wished he knew what the boy was referring to.  
  
“I haven't ‘lost’ anything,” Sergei spat, reminding Yuri of the hateful glare in his eyes and the fingers around his throat. Of the time Vasily had turned up in the training centre and Sergei had ordered him out of the room, of the crash he’d heard and the blood on Sergei’s knuckles. “If you had just done as I'd told you to, _none_ of this would have happened."  
  
"So now it's _my_ fault?"

A thud echoed from inside the room, and Yuri couldn’t tell if it was the sound of a boot hitting the wall or a fist hitting flesh. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Vasya, but there’s more at stake here than—”

“Forgotten where your room is?”

Yuri almost leapt a mile in the air, his heart hammering wildly in his chest. The argument stopped. Belkin stood in the doorway at the end of the corridor, arms crossed, tall and imposing and casting a long shadow across the floor.

 _Belkin_ _’s a coward._

Levitsky’s voice was loud in Yuri’s mind as his words repeated over and over. It wasn’t an empty threat, far from it; Yuri had never heard anyone sound as sincere as Levitsky had done. It wasn’t just himself and Boris in danger, Belkin was as well.

_The sooner he mucks up, the sooner I can get rid of him._

Tailing Belkin back up the stairs, his heart pounding in time with the man’s boots hitting the ground, Yuri realised that he’d just found his bargaining chip. Belkin could hand him over to Valkov in the space of a blink, Yuri was well aware of that, but if he was able to create even the smallest hint of doubt in Levitsky’s mind that Belkin hadn’t followed his orders, Belkin was sure to meet the same fate as he was.

Which meant Belkin could be manipulated; something Yuri knew he needed take advantage of.


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ivan-centric spin-off [Escape](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6611392) is uploaded, set between this chapter and the next.

“Come with me.”

The voice made Yuri jump, whipping his head up from from his arms to see Ivan sat before him. How long had he been talking for? The muffled joy he felt at actually being recognised was immediately drowned by the uncertainty on Ivan’s face.

Ivan spared Yuri’s black hair a worried glance. “Yura, _come with me_ ,” he asked again, his voice strained, “tonight, an hour after curfew. Outside the engineering suite.”

The tunnel—he was going for the tunnel he’d found—but Boris was… “I can’t.”

“Why?”

Yuri made the mistake of catching Ivan’s eyes, hating the disappointment and desperation he saw. He should go, he _wanted_ to go. Ivan knew the Abbey’s underground better than anyone, if he said that he’d found a tunnel that could lead them beyond the gate then Yuri believed him. But he had a promise to keep. “I can’t, Vanya… I can’t leave him here.”

“What if it’s too late?” It was said in the quietest whisper but the weight of it crushed Yuri into the ground. “We can’t stay here anymore, we can’t, we need to leave.”

Yuri felt the ghost of a hand cover his own, a voice murmuring in his ear as he stared down at the table. _Just promise you won_ _’t do anything stupid… none of us are worth it._ Boris didn’t think he was worth the risk. He would gladly accept being left behind if it meant Yuri had a chance at freedom, Yuri had no doubt about that.

But could he live with himself knowing that he’d left Boris behind?

He felt light-headed and sick as he stood to leave. “I’m sorry. Good luck, Vanya.”

“Wait.” Ivan’s voice was so small that Yuri almost missed it. He turned to see the boy digging for something in his pocket before pushing his clenched fist over the table. Yuri covered it with his tray, sliding his fingers under to scoop up the small key Ivan had passed him. “There’s a box in my workroom. Just… just be careful, please.”

A simple nod, and Yuri had to walk away before the realisation that he might not see Ivan again could fully sink in.

He hadn’t seen Belkin since he’d woken that morning, and some part of him was missing the man’s presence. Yuri hadn’t told him what he’d overheard when he’d returned to his room the night before, simply handed over the whiskey and curled up on his bunk. The bottle had been stood by Belkin’s cot that morning, unopened.

He’d been given no orders to follow, no notice of any training sessions, he had no clue where he was even going until he found himself standing in the training centre. Locked alone in a small room, Yuri loaded his blade and fired, sitting on the rim of the dish and watching Wolborg spin meaningless patterns below him. She settled in his mind, strong and warm. In the room next door, metal clashed and boys shouted. Yuri took the key from his pocket and held it in his lap.

If Ivan got out, where would he go? He wasn’t stupid, surely he’d managed to work out that Yuri was in contact with someone from the BBA. He might not have realised _who_ , but at least he would know where to start. Would the BBA take him in? Would they be able to protect him when Valkov came looking for him? Surely the man wouldn’t want someone like Ivan—someone with his knowledge—spilling everything to the public.

Yuri frowned at the key as a thought struck him; did the BBA even know what Kai was up to?

The door behind him rattled and Yuri slid down into the dish to collect his blade, battling the instinct to hide from whoever was trying to get in despite the fact that he was doing nothing wrong. An irritated technician and a sombre-faced boy stood out in the corridor, and Yuri was reprimanded for not checking the timetable before deciding to use the room. He kept his head bowed, apologised quickly and left.

He spent the rest of the day in his room, sat cross-legged on the bottom bunk and staring at Belkin’s empty cot. Ivan had left something specifically for him in his workroom and a thousand possibilities sifted through Yuri’s mind, getting more and more ridiculous with every passing moment. By the time the light had faded outside and the noise in the corridor of boys being escorted back to their rooms had silenced, Yuri wasn’t even sure he _wanted_ to know what Ivan had left. The vivid memory of Kai and Boris lying prone in the reddening snow was imprinted on his eyelids, the bang of the gun in Valkov’s hands and his own inhuman scream.

Curfew came and went. Belkin was still missing.

The West Wing’s engineering suite was dark when Yuri eventually found it, peering through the window in one of the doors to check for any movement. He vaguely recalled Ivan once telling him that the engineers always left early and hoped that the boy was right. The room was illuminated by only a single strip-light in the ceiling, pointing directly at the staircase Ivan had led him down before. Yuri crept through the gloom, stopping at the first step to steady his nerves. The temperature dipped the further he went, until he was holding his arms over his chest as he reached the door to Ivan’s workroom.

It wasn’t locked, the door opening so silently that Yuri was almost certain someone was waiting on the other side for him. A shiver wracked his body as he stood in the near-darkness, glancing around to find the box. His eyes caught on a strip of fabric poking out of the filing cabinet Ivan had kept his laptop cables in. He tugged gently, the drawer clanking open to reveal Ivan’s headband. Yuri was certain Ivan had left it deliberately and gently ran his thumb over the material before stuffing it into his pocket.

There was no box in the drawer, but something moved underneath as he shook it in annoyance. Yuri ran his hands around the edge of the base and found a slot for the key, twisting until it clicked. The base lifted and Yuri felt around in the dusty space underneath, pulling out a plastic card taped to a sheet of paper and a torch.

Huddled in the corner of the room, shielding himself with his jacket, Yuri flicked the torch on and checked what he was holding. A well-used security card bearing the faded face of a man he didn’t recognise and a hand-drawn map. Ivan had scribbled a series of numbers along one edge; the security code for the lab he’d shown Yuri to.

The lab they were keeping Boris in.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Yuri stood and took a deep, shuddering breath. Ivan’s last favour to him; if he couldn’t help Yuri escape, then he could at least help him find out what had happened to Boris. Yuri wasn’t sure what the time was, only that it was some time after curfew, and wondered whether Ivan had found the end of the tunnel. Whether he’d even managed to get there.

Silently thanking the boy, Yuri turned his attention back to the map he’d been given, memorising the tunnels and corridors that would lead him from Ivan’s workroom to the main access doors to the lab. He slid the card in his boot and the map in the tear in his jacket, shaking Ivan’s headband down into the lining as well.

He was crossing back through the engineering suite when the intercom spluttered to life and the alarm blared, shock sending him reeling to the floor. Orders blasted repeatedly from the walls—guards to their stations over and over and over—and Yuri sat, frozen, on the wrong side of the Abbey in the middle of the night hiding a security pass he shouldn’t have had. He needed to get back to his room. He needed to hide. He needed to do one or both and get as far away from engineering as possible, _now_.

The lights in the corridor blinded him as he ran, taking the stairs two at a time and ignoring the burn in his chest. Shouting erupted in front of him, the stampede of rushing feet forcing him to double-back down a hallway he’d never been down and he hurried to gather his bearings—West Wing, ground floor? No, first, he’d taken the stairs, Ivan’s bedroom was another floor up, he could—

No. No he couldn’t, because Ivan wouldn’t be there.

Yuri lurched forward and landed hard on his knees, fighting against nausea. The alarm, the guards… were they going after Ivan? He had to check his room, he had to—the rattle of gunfire had him on his feet again in an instant, tearing down the hall and launching himself over the rail around the stairwell to the floor below. The impact forced the breath from his lungs in a rush but he kept going, frantically searching for somewhere— _anywhere_ —he could use as a hiding place.

A door opened to his left, a hand grabbed at his collar and Yuri gave a fearsome growl, twisting around his attacker’s arm and using the wall to push his full weight into it. He heard a sickening pop, a pained howl from the man whose elbow he’d just dislocated, and didn’t wait to catch a glimpse of his face before sprinting off.

The alarm wail was deafening, the gunfire and shouts were closing in and Yuri was _certain_ he heard his name above the chaos as he launched himself into a door. He slammed it shut over his jacket, fighting to free himself from it and stumbling head-first into the dark. Boxes and bottles fell around him, the metal clang of a shelving unit against the wall impossibly loud in his ears, and Yuri curled around himself as liquid sloshed over his head and a stampede of boots passed just metres away from him.

Cold and wet, his own harsh breathing battering his face under the bucket that had landed on him, Yuri prayed.

Prayed that Ivan hadn’t been caught.

Prayed that his jacket caught in the lock wasn’t showing the rest of the world where he was hiding.

Prayed that whoever had just opened the door and poured light and the ear-splitting alarm into the room _wasn_ _’t about to kill him_.

He yelped as the bucket was yanked from his head, folding down and shielding himself with his arms. The door shut, whoever had found him was stood mere inches away. Something warm and heavy draped over his shoulders and Yuri dared to open his eyes. He opened his mouth but nothing came out, his mouth dry as sand. He didn’t question Belkin as the man signalled for him to stand, didn’t flinch at the hand that steadied him when he stumbled over the bottles and cleaning equipment that covered the floor.

“Stay close, keep your head down.”

Yuri nodded, pulling his jacket tight around his chest, the security card in the lining digging into his side. Belkin led him back out into the corridor, the alarm was still ringing but the shouts and gunfire were so faint Yuri could barely hear them. He followed the guard out of the West Wing and across the main lobby, shivering at the sudden cold; the entrance doors were wide open and Yuri could see the iron gate. Two armed guards approached them on the first floor of East and without warning Belkin reached across to grab Yuri by the back of his neck, forcefully pushing him in front. The guards didn’t spare them a second thought, though the firm hand didn’t drop until they were out of sight.

Belkin marched him right up to his window, Yuri blinking rapidly as a spotlight swept along the building from outside. “If you leave your room again before that light goes off, there’s nothing I can do for you. Understand?” The man left him stood stiffly at the window and slammed the door behind him.

His eyes were dry from staring out at the watchtower and the spotlight combing the Abbey’s grounds. Belkin had told him to wait—seemed to somehow know that Yuri would go out again—and after what the man had just done for him Yuri had no reason not to trust him. He wasn’t sure how long he’d waited, but when the light made one final arc along the wall and flickered out, Yuri exhaled the breath he’d been holding and rubbed at his eyes until they watered.

The Abbey was eerily quiet as he cautiously made his way back to the West Wing. He’d avoided the main corridors, sticking to the empty, dusty hallways that were rarely used. It took a little longer, but he certainly didn’t want to risk being caught again, not when the guards were already alert and jumpy. The tunnels leading from Ivan’s workroom were so dark that no matter how long he waited for his eyes to adjust, he could still barely make out the stone wall he was following with his hand. He didn’t dare risk using the torch, relying on his memory instead and taking short, measured steps, jumping at every scrape of loose stone under his boots. Even focused on the map and only the map, he was almost certain he’d taken a wrong turning and got lost, wasn’t sure how long he’d spent feeling his way around under the Abbey.

Did anybody else know about the tunnels? Would anyone find him if he couldn’t work out how to get back out?

After an age, he came to a single door set back in the wall, the dim light underneath it almost blinding. Yuri crept up to it, crouching with his ear pressed against the metal. There was no window to check through, but he could only hear a faint whirring from the other side. No movement, no voices. His palm was clammy as he gently pressed the card against the scanner, flinching at the loud beep. The lock shifted heavily inside the door and it opened slightly under Yuri’s weight. Taking a breath and steeling himself for whatever he might meet on the other side, Yuri pushed his way through.

Another long corridor, with plastered walls and tiled floors far too similar to the medical wing for comfort. Yuri waited for his pulse to settle and slowly made his way down, acutely aware of every sound around him. He passed dark rooms and bolted doors, following the very faint murmur of activity. Peering around a corner, Yuri’s eyes immediately fell on the keypad beside a set of double doors.

Shadows moved beyond it, and voices filtered out. Too muffled to make out words, but definitely more than one person. The windows were covered. The voices grew louder and Yuri’s heart dropped as he realised the shadows were moving closer.

He tested the handle of the door he was pressed against but it wouldn’t budge, he tried another, panic starting to set in when he realised it was locked. He was in a long corridor with nowhere to hide, didn’t have time to run to the end and around the corner before whoever was in the room opened the door. Trapped. He was going to get caught.

The door behind him creaked open a fraction, he heard his name whispered from the darkness beyond it and didn’t even think twice before diving inside. It shut just as he heard the bleep of a security card. Heavy footfalls echoed down the hall, past Yuri’s hiding place, and he jumped when he realised he was pressed against another person.

“It’s me, Yura.”

“ _Vasya_?”

Vasily hushed him with a hand over his mouth and in the darkness beckoned Yuri further into the room away from the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Borya—they’ve got him—why are _you_ here?”

Vasily hesitated just long enough to give away that his next words were a lie. “Heard they had a new ‘project’, needed to see for myself.”

Yuri recalled the argument he’d heard through Sergei’s door just the night before and was sure he wasn’t imagining the bruising over Vasily’s jaw. Had Sergei sent him to check on Boris as well?

“I know the code for the lab,” Yuri whispered, hoping that he wasn’t wrong to place his trust in someone caught at odds with Sergei.

Vasily’s head shot up, a question on his lips that he quickly shook away. “There’s a side door they never use. Shall we?” Taking Yuri’s silence as a confirmation, Vasily led him to the other end of the room and cracked open the door there. Opposite them was another door with another pad. The light filtering underneath was dimmer and there was no window. With only the smallest nudge from Vasily, Yuri took the few steps to it and pressed in the code. The door shifted open and Vasily leaned in close to listen, nodding and pushing it open an inch further, beckoning Yuri to follow.

They were crouched behind tall machinery, Vasily signalling Yuri to silence as he moved along to a gap and peered through. Voices poured into the room as a door opened and Yuri’s breath caught at the one he recognised. _Levitsky_.

He lay close to the ground, shimmying closer so that he could peer through the gap as well. Levitsky was stood rigid, his uniform jacket missing, with two men in lab coats. One Yuri hadn’t seen before, who was wrapping a thick roll of gauze around Levitsky’s upper arm—a gunshot wound?—and the other he recognised as Doctor Barinov. Yuri felt a disgusted sneer pull at his face.

The man Yuri didn’t know gave an irritated sigh, snipping away some excess material and stepping back to admire his work. “I still say we should simply get rid of them, it’ll make this whole thing so much easier.”

Barinov scoffed. “And waste such good testing material? Don’t be ridiculous, Zhenya.”

“There’s more at stake here than your _experiments,_ ” Levitsky warned, disappearing from Yuri’s view and reappearing as he pulled on his jacket.

“I know that,” Barinov spat, “but I have a job to do here as well; I’m this close to a breakthrough and I’ve finally got what I need to achieve it.”

Levitsky’s dismissive grunt didn’t impress. “Just make sure the inspection runs smoothly. If they suspect anything, it better _not_ come from this lab, understood?”

Barinov waved his concern away. “If anything doesn’t go to plan, it won’t start down here. Everything is already in place; none of the boys in there will be in any state to say a single word, I can guarantee that.”

The man they’d called Zhenya shook his head, disappearing through the door just behind them. Levitsky watched him go with a frown, absently testing the strength of his injured arm. “I hope I don’t need to remind you that this entire department is disposable,” he warned, voice low, “and so are your ‘experiments’. Don’t let me down.”

Barinov chuckled lightly despite the venom in Levitsky’s voice. “As you wish, Pasha.”

Levitsky’s footsteps faded and the sound of doors closing tore a painful wound in Yuri’s heart. He could feel himself shaking, pressing his face down against the cold floor as tears threatened to well up. Disposable… Boris was _disposable_. A gentle push on his shoulder reminded him of Vasily’s presence, the boy signalling back to the door they’d come through, but Yuri wasn’t ready, couldn’t leave until he’d seen him. Until he knew that Boris was still alive in the next room.

“I need to go in,” he whispered, voice wavering with despair and anger.

“You can’t, it’s too risky— _Yura_!”

Heartbeat pounding in his ears, Yuri darted across the room, skidding behind the desks by the door Barinov just gone through. Back on the other side of the room, Vasily desperately tried to beckon him back, but Yuri couldn’t. He _couldn_ _’t_.

Drawing a breath that stuck in his throat, he launched himself up against the wall and peered through the window, searching desperately for another hiding place inside. More machinery lined the walls, and without even thinking, his mind on complete lock-down, Yuri slipped into the room and left Vasily’s pleas behind him.

Four medical beds were lined up against the far wall, each surrounded by beeping machinery and tubes. Yuri carefully worked his way towards them, watching the only other door and expecting Barinov to burst back through it at any moment. The first bed was empty but unmade, the sheets dangling haphazardly over the edge as if someone had been recently pulled out of it. Yuri pushed away the thought of what had happened to whoever had been lying there. The second and third held two boys he barely recognised, and the last—Yuri had to clamp his hand over his mouth to muffle his cry.

Boris lay lifeless, his skin a sickly grey, one of the machines he was hooked up to bleeping a worryingly slow drone. Sparing another glance to the door, Yuri lurched forward, one hand clenched so hard around the bedrail that his knuckles bleached white and the other carefully smoothing back Boris’ tangled hair. His forehead was cold and clammy, and the needles feeding pale liquid into his arm made Yuri gag when he noticed them.

“ _Borya_ …” he tried, pressing his face close to Boris’ and praying that the other boy would hear him. “Borya, wake up. _Please_ …” The monitor gave a few extra beeps before settling back down, but there was no other sign that Boris knew he was there.

A startled gasp came from just ahead of him. Fear gripped Yuri’s heart and yanked it clean from his chest as he glanced up just in time to catch white coattails disappearing through the door. _He_ _’d been spotted_. He squeezed his hand tightly around Boris’ own, terror twisting his stomach, and was barely able to whisper an apology before instinct had him sprinting out of the room, through the next and into the corridor.

Hands caught in his jacket, pulling him backwards, and Yuri fought until Vasily’s face came into view. “ _Run_ , Yura—outside, I’ll send someone to get you. Just _keep running_ , understand?” He stumbled as he was pushed down another corridor. Vasily had vanished, heavy footsteps and Levitsky’s voice echoed behind him.

Yuri ran.

Outside, outside, _outside_. A door on his left, Wolborg’s presence flashed, and Yuri exploded out into the darkness behind the Abbey. No watch towers, no lights. The door slammed behind him, Yuri sprinted for the thick trees ahead.

His chest was on fire. His lungs burned. The searing pain in his legs was _unbearable_.

_Just keep running._

The image of Boris lying comatose surrounded by machines flashed between blurry glimpses of the woodland around him. Branches caught in his clothes, tearing fabric and skin and threatening to trip him at every turn. The rushing wind and his racing pulse pounded in his ears and on top of that were the thundering footfalls of the man in pursuit.

Levitsky.

_Run, Yura!_

The ground fell away from him and seconds later he took a mouthful of the forest floor, arms shaking as he pulled himself up and swiped at his face. Blood smeared the back of his hand. Behind, silence.

He couldn’t breathe.

“I should’ve just done this at the start.”

Yuri jerked around, sprawled on his back and shaking, _crying_. Above him, wearing a sadistic smirk that had Yuri wanting to scream and beg for mercy—for _anything_ —Levitsky curled his finger around the trigger of his gun.

Words fell from Yuri’s lips, so jumbled, disconnected and _pathetic_ that he wasn’t sure they were even his own. He told everything; Kai’s letter, the stolen files, how Ivan was using the tunnels and how Sergei and Vasily could sneak things out of the Abbey, how Belkin _knew_ he was leaving his room but was doing _nothing_ to stop him, the room on the fourth floor where they could make people disappear, everything, _everything_.

He couldn’t _make himself stop_.

Levitsky laughed, thanked him, and pulled the trigger.


	31. Chapter 31

Weightless.

He felt weightless.

Cold soaked into his jacket. A fox barked somewhere close, his hearing on his right was off, but it was enough to shock his mind into action and force him to gulp a breath.

His arms ached, his chest was alight and his legs had cramped up.

But…

He was alive. Levitsky hadn’t… he hadn’t—

Lurching to his feet and stumbling blindly into something solid, Yuri cried.

A warm hand rested gently on the back of his neck, the other slowly lacing through his hair. Yuri could feel the person’s chest rumble as they spoke but couldn’t hear anything beyond the sobs wracking his body. Whoever it was pulled him away, moving with him as Yuri sagged to the ground. The hand in his hair curled around his chin instead, tilting his head back until Yuri felt a faint light settle over his eyelids. He didn’t resist as arms pulled him close again, whispering to him in words he was sure he couldn’t understand.

But he felt safe.

Seconds, minutes, hours… Yuri wasn’t sure how long he stay slumped on the damp ground being held by those arms. He wasn’t even sure how he was still alive. The person holding him shifted, Yuri heard a click, the familiar spit of a match and immediately knew who was with him before he felt the exhale of smoke over his head.

“Belkin?” The guard gave a soft grunt but said nothing. Someone would come get him, Vasily had said. Yuri cautiously opened his eyes, recognised the mottled green fabric of the man’s uniform and stared at the open strap of his gun holster.

Yuri jerked back and emptied his stomach onto the woodland floor. Barely a few metres away, Levitsky lay face-down, the back of his jacket steadily turned black.

“You need to get inside,” Belkin said, brushing off dead leaves as he stood, “nobody will follow you.”

Yuri wiped a shaking hand over his mouth, gradually pushing himself up onto trembling legs. A hundred questions rushed through his mind and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the body just in front of him. “Why?”

“Why? Because you’re out after curfew.”

Shaking his head vehemently Yuri whirled on the man that had saved his life. “No, I… why—Levitsky, you—”

Belkin held up a hand, effectively silencing Yuri’s jumbled questions. “Go back to your room, Yuri. That’s an order.”

He looked over at Levitsky again, unable to help himself, and had to fight down another wave of nausea. His vision blurred, his entire body feeling far too heavy to move. Belkin took a step away and Yuri couldn’t stop the small whine that escaped him. “You aren’t taking me back in.”

“No. I’ve got a job to finish here.”

“I’ll tell Valkov what happened.” The words were out before Yuri could even think about them. “I’ll tell him that you—that you…” Was he trying to blackmail the man that had just saved his life? Belkin gave a tired sigh.

“He’s got bigger things to worry about right now.” Belkin’s voice was carefully neutral, but when he looked back Yuri noticed a gentleness on the man’s face that he hadn’t seen before. “Go, please.”

Yuri felt himself nod, stumbling over his feet for a moment before he remembered how to walk. Belkin turned away, and Yuri watched for a moment as the man silently knelt by Levitsky’s body and pressed his fingers to his neck. Glancing over his shoulder, Yuri saw the light of the Abbey through the trees and started to follow it. His vision skewed and faded, the lights moulding together in a shimmering blur.

Whatever they’d done to him was taking over, and Yuri had run out of energy to fight it.

* * *

Something cool slid down his cheek.

_Wake up, Yuri._

A drop, then another. Blindly he nudged his face against his shoulder but the drops didn’t stop. Something snuffled around his hand, warm puffs brushing over his knuckles.

_See how long you last._

A fox barked sharply in his ear and Yuri’s eyes snapped open.

He was surrounded by trees and near darkness, must have not made it back to the Abbey and passed out in the woods. For once, whatever had been done to his head had failed to take him somewhere safe. The cold night air and lying in the damp had left him entirely numb, so much so that he couldn’t get his legs to function and had to prop himself up against the base of a tree. Glancing around, Yuri felt that all too familiar dread begin to settle in as he realised he could see nothing but dense woodland all around him. The Abbey’s lights were missing, and looking up Yuri could see nothing but black sky over frighteningly tall trees.

A faint hint of smoke tickled at his senses and when he turned, Yuri couldn’t have felt more relieved. Belkin stood a short distance away, his head tilted back as he exhaled. Yuri started moving to him, the shuffling of the leaves under his bruised knees impossibly loud, but when Belkin glanced back over his shoulder, Yuri may as well have been invisible. It wasn’t just that Belkin hadn’t spotted him, he’d looked right through him.

Panic trickled in. Belkin heaved a sigh, flicked his spent cigarette to the ground and walked away. _No, don_ _’t leave me here!_

Yuri wanted to run but his legs refused to co-operate. He called out for Belkin, shouted for him to stop but the man had vanished. His leg caught on a bramble, he tried to kick it loose, reaching down to untangle it—

And screamed when he touched a cold hand.

Scrambling for purchase in the leaves Yuri fell forward, trying and failing to wrench his leg free. The hand extended to an arm, a person, and a face that sent Yuri’s mind reeling and had his stomach turning in knots. He kicked out at the bloodied figure crawling behind him, tearing himself from their grasp and stumbling to his feet. Ivan gave a wet, gurgling laugh, stammering apologies and reaching out to Yuri again with broken fingers. He was sorry, _so_ sorry, the tunnel was a dead end and he’d been caught and _he was so damned sorry._

A broken cry tore from Yuri’s throat and he staggered back. He bumped into someone—Boris, soaking and dirty—unfocused green eyes stared past him, Boris’ mouth forming words that were too quiet for Yuri to hear. Yuri stepped closer, his entire body shaking, but when he pulled the boy into his arms, Boris’ head lolled back and the pin-prick mark from the needle in his arm split into a gaping wound, dark blood staining white skin. Yuri watched his oldest friend shatter as he hit the floor.

Pain shot through Yuri’s stomach, doubling him over and leaving him coughing wetly and fighting down nausea. Blood smeared the back of his hand when he wiped his mouth, his moan of agony accompanied by a roar of thunder as the sky opened and pelted him with stinging rain. He tried to walk but his knees buckled, dumping him hard on the ground next to Sergei and Vasily and their broken, battered faces. Yuri dug his fingers into rotten leaves as the ground lurched beneath him and grabbed hold. Ice touched his forehead and he stared down a gun barrel into gleaming, sadistic eyes.

Levitsky’s laugh stole the air from his lungs as the ground swallowed him whole.

Yuri woke to a gunshot that reverberated in his ears but never hit him, jerking upright and heaving a gasping breath. Something chilled his fingertips and he screamed, throwing himself from wherever he was and landing on hard stone, struggling against grasping hands that wouldn’t let go.

Lying on his bedroom floor, Yuri dug the heels of his palms into his eyes so hard that he saw stars. A nightmare, just another disgusting nightmare that left him terrified and fighting to control his racing heartbeat. He shuffled backwards out of the blanket wound tight around his knees and something metal scraped along the floor. Rolling to his side, Yuri spotted something glinting under the cot and stretched to retrieve it. Belkin’s smoking tin.

It didn’t make sense, Belkin had been smoking when he’d—Yuri shook his head before the twisted images of his nightmare resurfaced and slowly manoeuvred so that he was perched on Belkin’s cot. He’d never seen the man leave it behind before so he _must_ have been back to Yuri’s room to leave it with him, though Yuri couldn’t for the life of him work out why.

Desperate, but for what he had no idea, Yuri threw himself back down onto Belkin’s cot and clutched the tin to his chest, wrapping the blanket so tightly around his neck he almost couldn’t breathe.

* * *

Yuri lay curled on Belkin’s cot long after the intercom out in the hall had given the wake-up call. He’d woken up again in the night, tormented by the expression on Levitsky’s face. He pulled the blanket tighter around his body and tried to push the sight of the lifeless figure in the woods from his mind.

He hadn’t seen Belkin since, and something told him he probably wouldn’t see the man again. He wasn’t even sure how he’d react if he did see him… should he thank Belkin for saving him or should he _hate_ him just as he did every other guard in the Abbey? He’d stood by and done nothing whilst Valkov erased his identity, he’d blackmailed him into going to food store for something he didn’t even want, surely Belkin knew there was a risk—

Had Belkin known Levitsky would be in there?

Yuri jerked upright, mind racing as pieces clicked into place. If Belkin _had_ known who would be in the food hall that night, if he’d know what they’d be talking about, maybe he’d known what Yuri would find out from listening in. Maybe Belkin had _wanted_ him to find out, find out where Boris was being kept, find out about the inspection…

Belkin had been acting so unlike one of the Abbey’s guards since he’d been charged with watching him that Yuri wondered whether he’d misjudged the man completely. It made no sense and _perfect_ sense at the same time, and Yuri wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at the realisation.

The more Yuri rolled the possibility over in his mind, the more it fit. Belkin wasn’t on Valkov’s side at all. It explained why Levitsky was so desperate to get rid of him, why Belkin seemed to genuinely _care_ about him, why the man had bothered to come after him and _save his life_ —Vasily had told him someone would come and find him. Belkin had to be the missing link between Sergei and Vasily and the other side of the iron gates, he _had_ to be.

A strained laugh escaped Yuri’s throat as he slumped boneless against the wall. There’s something far bigger to worry about… did _Kai_ know who Belkin was?

Suddenly restless, Yuri got to his feet and gulped handfuls of water from the basin. He splashed his face and scrubbed at the scrapes on his hands. There wasn’t much he could do about the state of his uniform.

When he finally arrived outside the food hall he expected it to be practically empty. He’d just missed the breakfast rush which normally left only a few of the Abbey’s employees in the hall. The level of noise that reached him before he’d even laid a hand on the door reminded him that training sessions had long since been forgotten.

The hall was packed; a mass of faces pressed against the windows in the hopes of catching a glimpse of whatever was happening outside. Voices jumbled together, each growing louder and louder to try and overcome the next. Yuri pushed into the crowd, ducking under arms and dodging elbows, and set his cheek against the cold window pane. For a moment he saw nothing, the heavy rain, the damp ground and the iron fence in the distance, but then something moved—a shadow to start with—growing into a mass of bodies that drew a shocked gasp from Yuri when he realised they were guards. Armed guards, filing out over the grounds like a swarm of flies.

Beside him, a younger boy shouted to another across the hall, and Yuri wasn’t sure whether the twisting sensation he felt in his chest was fear or anger or something entirely different. His heart dropped to his stomach then leapt up to his throat, tears danced in his eyes and he furiously blinked them away. Everyone around him was yelling the same, excited mantra, though the feeling clogging Yuri’s throat was as far from excitement as it could possibly be. Because Ivan had actually done it.

Ivan had escaped from the Abbey.

And with Boris trapped down in the lab, it only confirmed the loss of another person he trusted.

Yuri sat alone staring down at his tray, silently drowning in a sea of elation and there was nobody there to save him. Absently he picked at a knot in the table with a blunt fingernail, flinching when the intercom system suddenly crackled to life.

“Inspection from 1100 hours. All students will be assigned a group and will remain with their supervisor until further notice. Any disobedience will be reported; failure to follow instructions will result in punishment.”

The message repeated twice and the hall dropped into near-silence. He spared a glance at the confused faces surrounding him, the realisation that not a single one of them knew what was going on hitting him hard. He drew a deep breath as the intercom started to reel off groups of names and boys started to file out of the hall.

The inspection was Kai’s doing—there wasn’t an ounce of doubt in his mind—and Yuri refused to let Valkov break him now.

They were led in a badly co-ordinated march to the corridor just outside the communal showers, half a dozen guards standing in an arc by the doors as one announced that they had five minutes to wash. Yuri aimed to follow the boy in front of him but was stopped by a thick arm blocking his way. The guard it belonged to said nothing and merely nodded further down the corridor where Yuri noticed a second smaller group of boys forming. He ducked his head and joined them without complaint.

Another guard brandishing a baton beckoned him forwards. “What happened to you?” he asked, his eyes taking in the state of Yuri’s uniform for far too long to be comfortable. Yuri glanced down, hadn’t realised how bad the damage was until he saw it under the bright corridor lighting, and gave a quiet lie that he’d fallen training outside. The guard looked unconvinced and told him to strip where he stood.

Yuri tried to switch his mind into autopilot but didn’t quite succeed, feeling his face heat with humiliation as he undressed in the corridor. He was told to stand, unfold his arms and turn around whilst the guard inspected his body for what Yuri assumed to be unexplainable injuries. A few bumps and bruises could be brushed aside as boys getting a little rough with each other, anything worse was harder to lie through. Satisfied, the guard roughly grabbed his bare shoulder and shoved him onward.

The showers were full and Yuri struggled to find a space to stand under the freezing spray. Another boy’s hand reached out to restart the water when it cut out and Yuri tried to focus on getting clean instead of how uncomfortable he felt. Black liquid slid down his chest as he scrubbed the grime from his hair and the boy beside him sneered in disgust before moving to another outlet. Yuri stood staring at his distorted reflection in the shower pipe, black slowly staining his skin. His hair—whatever they’d put on his hair was washing out. Flooded with hope, Yuri scrubbed until his scalp stung, stealing an entire bar of soap before another hand grabbed it and rubbing it vigorously over his head. The bar snapped and came away black and crumbling, but Yuri’s hair refused to go back to it’s fiery red.

Sighing as a guard signalled that their time up and either they got out or drowned, Yuri rinsed and stepped out from under the water. He caught someone’s eye across the changing area as he was handed a fresh uniform and ducked out of sight to a far away bench as soon as he realised it was Vladislav. The boys on West Wing were separated for a reason—whatever that reason was—so why was Vladislav with him?

He wasn’t given a chance to think about it as the second he’d laced his boots his group was called up again, standing to attention against the wall outside the shower room before they were marched away. Still, Yuri couldn’t quite shake off the anger he’d seen in Vladislav’s gaze.

It had been two years since Yuri had sat in one of the Abbey’s classrooms, longer still since he’d actually been _taught_ anything. It hadn’t taken him long even back then to realise that education in the Abbey was nothing more than a farce, another way for the Director to make it seem as though he was preparing the boys for the future.

He could read and write well enough and knew some basic math—math that would help him with his beyblading at least, he wasn’t sure how it would necessarily help him in the outside world—but languages had never really been something he was good at. Staring down at the foreign words in front of him, Yuri started to wish he’d paid more attention the few times he _had_ been taught English.

The door to the office at the front of the classroom opened just as a guard entered the classroom. Yuri strained to hear what he was whispering to Valkov but couldn’t catch a word. He felt Valkov’s eyes on him though, almost heavy enough to flatten him to his desk— _lying out in the forest, blood soaking his jacket_ —Yuri forced the memory from his head, it took a moment for his pulse to settle when the Valkov stormed out of the room.

Another boy was called to the front and lead into the office. Yuri dared a glance across the room at the boy who’d just been allowed back to his seat. He didn’t seem in pain, hadn’t been beaten or interrogated harshly, if anything he seemed… relaxed? One of the men hovering between the desks started to walk back up Yuri’s aisle and he turned his head back to his paper, trying again to recognise some of the words on the page.

By the time he was called into the office, he’d managed to remember nearly half of the Latin alphabet.

“Good morning.” The man he met said politely, indicating for Yuri to sit down as the door was closed behind him. His accent wasn’t natural, Yuri noticed, and his clothes were far too crisp and clean. “Could you tell me your name?”

“It’s—” He caught himself just before his real name slipped out. Kai’s plan or otherwise, did he tell this man who he really was, or who Valkov had told him to be?

“Alright, what do you think of the lesson?” The man leaned forward in his chair as he spoke, sliding a scrap of paper across the desk. Yuri’s eyes widened as he read the poorly scribbled Russian. _This room is safe. Answer the question and write down your real name._

Swallowing the lump in his throat, Yuri took the pen offered to him and played along. “I don’t really know much English, so it’s hard.” He said honestly as he scrawled his name hastily on the bottom of the scrap.

The man paused as he read. “It’s a difficult language to learn,” he agreed, showing Yuri another note. _We_ _’re going to get you out of here. Just a little more time._ Yuri felt his eyes welling up as relief flooded every vein of his body. His reaction must have been obvious to the man opposite him, as he smiled warmly in response. “What did you say you name was again?” he asked, collecting the two scraps and dropping them into a glass of clear liquid on the desk before sealing a lid over it. Yuri watched them start to disintegrate.

This time he had no problem talking. “My name’s Dmitry Smirnov, sir.”

“Thank you, Dmitry. You may go back to your seat.”

Yuri jumped to his feet and was seconds from opening the door when the man turned him around and gently pinched his cheeks. He hadn’t even realised he’d been grinning. The man pressed a finger to his lips to signal him to be quiet before opening the door for him. Yuri made a beeline for his chair and couldn’t have cared less about the Latin alphabet.

Their plan had worked, they’d done it. Just a little longer and his time at the Abbey would be over.


	32. Chapter 32

Valkov had left for Saint Petersburg just moments after the inspection was over, and as nobody knew when he planned to return, the majority of East Wing had spent the last three days ignoring the orders they’d been left with and following no routine whatsoever.

Boys drifted up and down the corridors like they were exploring them for the very first time, they didn’t fear skipping training, in fact, they didn’t seem to fear much at all. The weight on Yuri’s shoulders had lifted, just a fraction—he still had no idea what would happen to Boris, no clue whether Ivan was safe—but the knowledge that they didn’t have long to wait now was just enough for Yuri to be able to _breathe_.

He’d taken to lying in Belkin’s cot instead of his own bunk, warmer than he’d ever been with the blanket and his own bedsheets tucked tight around him. He still hadn’t seen the man since that night. Yuri picked up the tin he’d left behind and held it up to the light, catching his reflection on the surface. The tiniest hint of red was starting to show again in his hair.

A slam nearby made him jump, the tin catching him in the eye. Anxious not to be caught lying in a guard’s bed, Yuri kicked the tin under the cot and scrambled to his feet to stand at the window instead. He heard his door creak open and sighed, fogging the glass as he waited for whoever it was to talk.

He heard nothing except a sharp intake of breath.

Yuri glanced over his shoulder and barely had enough time to duck as a metal baton flew just shy of his head, crashing into the window. The glass smashed, splinters stung the back of his neck.

Vladislav looked murderous.

His training kicked in, instinctively throwing himself down and swinging his leg out to strike the boy in the back of the knee. Vladislav dropped and Yuri was on him in a heartbeat, fists raining down on his face, his chest, anywhere he could reach. He may not have had the advantage of strength, but if he could keep Vladislav pinned beneath him until someone heard—

He realised he’d made a mistake when something cold and unforgiving smashed into his cheek. _The baton_.

Rolling to avoid another lightening-fast strike and blinking tears from his eyes, Yuri got to his feet, arms raised. Vladislav was quick, the second blow hit so hard that he was sure he felt his bones grind together. He couldn’t have stopped the painful yelp that escaped his lips if he’d tried.

A moment of hesitation—Yuri’s foolish attempt to pull away only to back into the cot—and Vladislav’s boot met his stomach, winding him as fingers tangled in his hair, yanking him down so sharply that when his knees met the floor the impact sent a wave of pain shooting up his spine.

Yuri blinked, struggling to clear the haze from his mind. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe, held back against Vladislav’s chest, the metal baton tight against his throat, crushing his windpipe and squeezing the air from his lungs.

He reached up, blindly flailing his fists to try to reach Vladislav’s face. His fingers brushed skin, tried to claw at the boy’s eyes but instead found his mouth, and Vladislav ground his teeth down around Yuri’s knuckles until the skin split.

“Wanna know a secret?” The boy’s voice was a harsh whisper against his ear that Yuri struggled to focus on as his mind blanked out and his vision started to spin. “When you go up to the fourth floor and ask them to fix your pathetic problems for you, the boy that does all the dirty work is me.”

Yuri spluttered, sucking in short, ragged breaths as he tried to pull the baton from his throat. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. “ _Liar_ …”

“I was so glad when I got to get rid of Anton Vitaliev, but his brother didn’t feel the same. When I told him it was because of you, he was furious.” Vladislav chuckled and spat blood on the cot. “You remember Oleg, don’t you?”

As much as he wanted to ignore Vladislav, as much as he didn’t want to listen to his mocking voice, he needed the boy to keep talking. It was the only thing keeping his eyes open.

“I’m surprised you haven’t tried to get rid of _me_ yet, especially after what I did to Papov.”

Ivan. Where was Ivan?

“He told you, didn’t he? Or you must have noticed. I kicked him until he screamed but he wouldn’t give me anything. I knew he was hiding something from me, didn’t know what until I saw _you_ lying in his workroom.”

No, he’d escaped. He was safe.

“You cry like a _baby_ , did you know that?”

Something snapped in Yuri’s mind, overcome by a sudden, violent desire to tear his nails through Vladislav’s skin, to break bone, anger flaring through his body.

But it was too little, far too late. He didn’t notice how numb he was until he tried to lift his arms, until he realised he could no longer feel the stone biting into his knees or the pressure on his neck.

“Goodbye, Yuri Ivanov.”

His eyes shut, and for the briefest second, a dozen familiar faces appeared in his mind and shattered. He’d done all he could to help Kai, the boys at the Abbey would be free, there was nothing left for him to do. So close, but he’d run out of time.

Someone shouted in the distance and suddenly the world expanded. Vladislav disappeared from behind him and Yuri crumpled to the ground, coughing and gagging, gasping weak, rasping breaths. Hands closed around his shoulders, lifting him roughly and all but throwing him onto the cot.

He opened his eyes, squinting through the haze to see Sergei’s blurry outline standing in front of him.

“My room, Yura. _Now_.”

Yuri didn’t need to be told again. He staggered out, leaning heavily against the wall for support. The door slammed shut behind him and he collapsed in the empty corridor. Sergei’s room. The door rattled in its frame. He had to get downstairs. Metal hit metal and glass smashed and Yuri struggled to find the energy to move.

A strangled cry echoed around him, a heavy thud and then complete silence.

He flinched and shrank back as Sergei emerged from the room, his left arm hanging limp and oddly twisted at his side. He nodded towards the stairwell but didn’t say a word, clearly expecting Yuri to follow. The bloody hand-print he left behind stood out under the lights. Vladislav didn’t come after him.

Sergei was the one that broke the silence once Yuri had closed his door. “I need you to set my shoulder.”

Without even thinking Yuri nodded, kneeling on the mattress—ignoring the red smear the baton Sergei had brought with him left across the sheets—and leaned forward to pull the shreds of Sergei’s torn sleeve away from his skin. It was already starting to swell, bruising a sickly yellow and dented where the joint had popped from the socket. There wasn’t even the smallest trace of discomfort on Sergei’s face.

Valkov certainly knew what he was doing when it came to Sergei’s training.

Knowing he needed something to stop the swelling, he took the few steps to the basin and soaked the old towel hooked around the pipes in freezing water. Sergei didn’t say a word, didn’t so much as wince when Yuri pressed the folded towel against his injury, just stared straight into Yuri’s eyes.

Yuri wanted to shiver under the weight of Sergei’s gaze but forced the reaction down, breaking eye contact before it became unbearable. He unfurled a corner of the towel and held it before Sergei’s face, carefully wiping away the blood from his cheek and mouth when he received no verbal protest. Something about Sergei’s demeanour was becoming more and more unsettling the longer it lasted. Yuri wasn’t being particularly gentle; the wound below Sergei’s eye was refusing to stop bleeding and his shoulder was clearly dislocated, but Sergei simply sat on the bunk, unblinking. As if he wasn’t feeling a single thing.

Was that the secret? Was that Sergei’s role in Valkov’s twisted plans?

Yuri could continue to function no matter how exhausted his body was, Boris had been put through a hellish ordeal to crush every ounce of emotion and leave him with only obedience… had the Abbey taught Sergei— _forced_ him—to ignore pain, to be immune to it?

Was that even possible?

The air was suffocating as Yuri prepared to move Sergei’s shoulder back into place, and he almost wished someone else was there to provide a distraction. Yuri took a deep breath, focused on the bite marks over his knuckles, and rocked Sergei’s arm up and forward in one smooth motion. He retched at the sickening pop and forced himself to exhale. Sergei took a moment to stretch and roll his shoulder, conveying his gratitude with only a single nod as he wiped his hands clean.

“Are you afraid of me, Yura?” Sergei’s question caught him off guard and he smacked his head on the top bunk as he stood. Sergei’s face was still utterly blank, but there was curiosity and concern in his eyes, still locked with Yuri’s own.

Yuri swallowed, still able to feel the ghost of pressure on his throat, mumbling an incoherent noise as his mind seemed incapable of processing full words. Sergei gave a heavy, tired sigh, finally closing his eyes and resting his head back against the wall.

“Sometimes,” Yuri admitted eventually, rinsing the towel in the basin again and letting it soak. He dropped the baton in as well and the water turned a murky red. “I don’t know you as well as I thought.”

“Probably for the best.” Sergei’s voice was bitter and cold. “People are a lot less likely to cross the thing they fear.”

Yuri sagged against the edge of the basin and frowned down at his feet. “When have I ever crossed you?”

"I warned you. I warned you so many times—but you just never _listen_ , do you?"

The accusation in Sergei’s tone drove deep, breaking the barrier that reigned in Yuri’s anger. He turned back to the basin and forcefully scrubbed at the towel. "You nearly strangled me. Twice."   
  
"Words didn't seem to be getting through to you," Sergei replied instantly, shifting on the bunk.  
  
Yuri had to steady himself on the edge of the basin, gripping tight. “You told me to stop what I was doing and second later handed me a letter from Kai; what did you expect me to do with it?"  
  
"I was just doing my job."

The barrier finally burst, flooding him with rage. “To hell with your _job_ , Seriy!” Yuri spat, flinging his arm out and sending the towel flying, “I’ve spent months risking my life to get us out of here and you’ve known all along—the least you could’ve done was _helped me_!”

Sergei was suddenly on his feet, tall and powerful and _dangerous_. "You really have no idea what's going on here, do you?" he asked, “think about it; the secrecy, the training, the tests and experiments they put us through, the punishments for failure—do you _honestly_ think Biovolt’s only goal is to turn us into _sport stars_?”

The rage fled the instant Sergei’s words hit. Of course it made sense, Yuri had been tiptoeing around the thought for a long time without managing to put two and two together.

“We’re the unwanted children, the runaways Valkov picked up off the streets, the kids whose parents can’t afford to keep us,” Sergei continued, voice laced with so much emotion that Yuri was crushed by the sheer weight of it. “Biovolt takes us in and the rest of the world forgets we exist. Who out there would miss you if you disappeared, Yuri, _who_? Who do you think misses Piotr and Alexsandr—every other boy that’s vanished in this place?”

Nobody would miss him, Yuri was well aware of the fact. His father hadn’t bothered to find him when he’d run away to live on the streets.

“Who better to experiment on than someone that doesn’t exist? Nobody is going to give a damn if that experiment fails, they’ll just pick another boy and start again.”

Disposable. Just like— _don_ _’t think about him._ “You mean…”

“Biovolt isn’t training beybladers, Yura, they’re creating _soldiers_.” Sergei’s voice was urgent now, as if he was desperate for Yuri to understand exactly what he’d been missing for years. “You’re just one more in a line that’s been running for decades.”

Hearing the words out loud left Yuri floored, of course he knew he hadn’t been the only one, he’d read Boris’ file after all, but he’d never imagined just how far Biovolt’s experiments went. He dared a glance at Sergei’s face but only got as far as his collar, steeling himself for his next question. “What about you?”

“What _about_ me?” Sergei’s eyes narrowed, testing.

Yuri met his gaze with equal determination, set his jaw, and cracked the baton so _hard_ into Sergei’s injured shoulder that his own arm rattled with the impact. A beat passed, Sergei looked down at him, impassive and unblinking and clearly having felt _nothing_ —and then his fist smashed the wall beside Yuri’s head, pinning him between Sergei’s arm and the basin. Yuri took in the rage that had overcome Sergei’s face and his resolve faltered, shattered at his feet.

The feeling coiling around his lungs and wrenching the air from him was pure _fear_.

Sergei screwed his eyes shut, forced a shuddering breath through clenched teeth, and jerked his head to the side. Yuri watched the rage drain from him, cautiously reaching up to curl his hand around Sergei’s arm in what he hoped was seen as a comforting gesture. “Seriy, _please_ —”

“They thought they’d failed,” Sergei started, quiet and hesitant, “when I was ten, they gave me one last chance to prove I was worth keeping, set me up in a no-rules match against Vasya.”

Yuri felt the muscle under his fingers tense, but refused to interrupt—not once, in the nine years he’d known Sergei, had he ever admitted to being weak. Yuri didn’t want him to close off about it now.

“Vasya was good, even back then.” Sergei tightened his fist against the wall then stepped back. He lifted his torn shirt with his good hand and Yuri’s eyes traced the two thick, angry scars across Sergei’s chest. “You don’t know how I got these, do you? After Vasya destroyed my blade, ruined whatever chance I had left, Valkov handed him a gun and ordered him to kill.”

An agonised sound tore from Yuri’s throat, the memory of what he’d seen out in the forest threatening to take over again. He reached out for Sergei without thinking—needed something to ground himself, keep him in the present—and pressed his fingertips to the largest scar. “What happened?”

“He followed his orders. Shot me, twice—I don’t know if he deliberately didn’t aim for anything vital—I managed to break his arm in three places and fracture his jaw before they were able to sedate me.”

Yuri drew his hand back so fast that his elbow whacked the stone behind him, staring up at Sergei with wide eyes. The realisation that he hadn’t been wrong was both reassuring and terrifying. “You didn’t feel a thing.”

“No.” Sergei shook his head. “It’s controllable, most of the time,” he said quietly. Yuri leaned heavily against the wall, watching as Sergei wrung out the towel again and held it over his shoulder. “You asked me before why it doesn’t bother me to see others fail, do you remember?”

“I remember.”

Sergei locked eyes with him again, and Yuri saw something fearful and haunted and so unlike Sergei hiding just behind the grey. “Sometimes failing is better than the alternative.”

Lying in Vasily’s bed, shivering under the thin sheet, Yuri tried to think of _anything_ but the horrors Sergei must have gone through whilst Biovolt tested just how successful they’d been. Sergei thumped his pillow on the bottom bunk.

Another wave of questions swam to the front of Yuri’s mind. He wanted to know more about the experiments, who else had been involved and what had happened to them, but recalling the look he’d seen in Sergei’s eyes stopped him short. He cleared his throat and tried in vain to push the thoughts away. “What happens now?”

Sergei sighed. “I don’t know,” he said honestly, looking up at Yuri as he leaned out over the railing. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the Director orders Valkov to clean up and move on.”

“Clean up?”

“Destroy the evidence. Whether we get caught in it or not depends on Kai now.” Yuri’s heart dropped and for a moment Sergei seemed unable to face him. When he eventually did, it was with a small, miserable smile. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I should never have let you get so involved.”

Yuri knew that if it hadn’t been for Sergei, he would never have survived as long as he had, would never have found out anything about what had been done to him. If it hadn’t been for Sergei, he would never have even made contact with Kai in the first place. Yuri wanted to say he had nothing to apologise for but the words stuck in his throat. Instead, he left Vasily’s bunk, threw his sheet on top of Sergei’s and wordlessly climbed in next to him.

The familiar comfort of lying beside Boris wasn’t there—and the memory alone made his heart ache—but when Sergei heaved a sigh behind and reached over to pull Yuri back against his chest, Yuri knew he wouldn’t have to face whatever happened next alone.


	33. Chapter 33

When Yuri was shaken awake, his sleep-addled mind could barely work out _who_ was shaking him let alone why. An onslaught of noise erupted in the hallway and suddenly he was more alert than ever. It was still dark outside, he couldn’t remember hearing the wake-up call.  
  
Sergei's frame was blocking the light from under the door so Yuri was unable to see his face. There was urgency in his voice, however, that filled Yuri with a sense of dread. "Get up, we need to go."  
  
"What's going on?" Yuri asked, unnerved by Sergei’s desperation  
  
"No questions, Yura. Just get up. _Now_."  
  
The intercom in the hallway blared white noise and the fire alarm triggered, wailing for half a moment before it died. Yuri didn't need to be told again. Something was definitely wrong. Yuri was just about able to pull on his boots before Sergei all but shoved him from the room.

Vasily was waiting for them on the stairwell, wary and concerned. Sergei shared a glance with him before nodding and directing Yuri down the hallway. His hand on Yuri’s shoulder was tight enough to hurt and he didn’t seem to notice that Yuri was having trouble keeping up with his long strides.

The food hall was a mass of bodies and loud voices. Yuri recognised only about three quarters of the boys in the room, even fewer by name, but even twisting and turning as much as he could with Sergei’s fist still closed around his shoulder, Yuri couldn’t see Boris.

He tried to convince himself that he was hidden behind everyone else and _not_ still trapped in the lab, or worse. The lie slid off him like water.

As men in an unfamiliar uniform filtered in through the main entrance, the volume in the hall grew higher and higher, everyone asking the same questions and nobody able to give an answer. Why were they in the hall? What was going on? Where were the guards? Where was _Valkov_? Yuri closed his eyes and forced his mind to block out the noise, he was starting to feel light-headed; his chest tightening from fear and uncertainty, crushing his lungs and making it difficult to breathe.

Sergei noticed, thankfully, and dragged him through the room, pushing others out of the way so that he could stand by the window.

“Thank you,” he murmured, hoping to catch Sergei’s eye, but the other stood rigidly by his side and gave away nothing.

The glass was cold on his back, seeping through his shirt. Yuri huddled down against the wall, trying to rub warmth into his bare arms. He jerked upright as a realisation suddenly hit him—his jacket.

He wasn’t wearing it. Hadn’t been wearing it when Sergei had rescued him from Vladislav. Hadn’t even thought to go back and get it afterwards. He couldn’t leave without it, his life was hidden in the lining.

It had to still be in his room.

Glancing frantically around the hall, Yuri spotted a side exit that wasn’t being watched over by the strange guards. Sergei wasn’t looking his way, focused on the front of the hall where boys were being called out and collected and led away in groups. Yuri silently apologised and ducked through the throng of bodies near him.

The door wasn’t locked. Yuri pushed himself to a hard sprint, feet pounding in time with his racing heart, and didn’t stop until he was outside room 401.

Sergei’s print had dried on the door. Yuri almost reeled back as he walked in; the bunk was dented and broken and glass crunched under his boots, glistening in the dark stain on the floor. The heavy scent of blood brought bile to Yuri’s throat. He forced it down, pulling his jacket on from the wreckage of his bed. His eyes landed on the cot and he knelt to search for Belkin’s tin, not bothering to question why it was so important. His hand closed around metal just as cold fingers closed around his neck.

He couldn’t stop his yelp as he was dragged back to his feet, the hand over his mouth muffling his fearful shout. A painfully strong arm held him pinned back to an equally strong chest, his feet barely brushing the floor as he was dragged backwards from the room. Yuri fought, writhing in his captor’s iron grip and clutching at doorframes, the walls, anything he could use to break free. His nails tore against stone, the arm across his chest refused to budge.

“Don’t make this any harder than it has to be, boy.”

Yuri froze, allowed himself to be dragged through another doorway—he knew that voice.

The ground met him hard, scraping the skin from his palms. He rolled through it, coming to a crouch and shuddering at the grim, dangerous expression on Valkov’s face. Yuri charged forward, rage burning under his skin. Valkov expected it and countered easily, grabbing Yuri’s arm and twisting it back, shoving him face-first into a shelving unit. Boxes fell, contents clinking around his feet. His neck was grabbed again and Yuri landed heavily on a metal table, uniform tearing as he fell to a heap on the other side.

Yuri blinked the haze from his vision and stifled a groan. He had to stay alert, had to get away from Valkov and back to the hall. He should have told Sergei where he was, should never have left in the first place, _a stupid mistake_.

He scrabbled around for something he could defend himself with, came across metal—a long operating scalpel—and held it warily before him. Valkov chuckled.

“Do honestly think you can best me? I created you, Ivanov. I know everything about you, inside and out.” He gave a thoughtful sigh as Yuri balked at the implications of his words. “I should have known that you would try to destroy my work here the moment I saw you with Papov. That boy is my proudest achievement. Years of laborious research and testing, an endless list of failures and a body-count growing faster than it could be dealt with... I was ready to admit defeat. But then Papov came. He surpassed my highest expectations and _survived_.”

Yuri pushed away the image of Ivan’s battered face and lunged at Valkov again. The man blocked his first swipe but barely avoided the next. Yuri felt sick satisfaction as the blade sliced into skin.

“Impressive,” Valkov mocked, wiping the blood from his cheek, “but you’re slacking. I trained you better than that.”

Valkov kicked out at a trolley and Yuri dodged the only way he could—straight into the man’s waiting arms. He struggled, swinging wildly with the scalpel. The blade caught, Valkov twisted Yuri’s jacket until his arms were pinned above his head. Panicked by the vulnerable position, Yuri shrugged out of it and backed away. Valkov gave Yuri’s jacket an experimental shake, and a strangled shout escaped Yuri’s lips before he could rein it in.

The sound of fabric tearing was impossibly loud to Yuri’s ears and he watched, horrified, as his secrets scattered over the floor.

“Well,” Valkov began, looking over everything Yuri had hidden from him with interest. “This is unexpected.” The security card snapped under the man’s boot as he reached for a few crumpled sheets of paper. Yuri’s heart exploded in his chest. Kai’s letters—if Valkov saw his name then everything, _everything_ was over.

He was moving before he’d even realised, unplanned and uncoordinated and Valkov merely scoffed as he unhooked his baton.

Warmth spread over Yuri’s shoulder, his shirt staining red. He clenched his jaw, breathing harshly through his teeth and refused to look up as Valkov stepped close. “It’s a shame that it’s come to this. You would’ve saved yourself a lot of pain if you’d not been so stubborn.”

Yuri met Valkov’s merciless gaze as he was dragged to his feet and spat.

He struck out again with the blade, slashing through cloth and flesh. Valkov’s guttural growl was drowned in Yuri’s agonising scream, the baton raining down over his back, his head, slamming against his wounded shoulder, his ribs, his spine, his skull. He tasted copper, barely able to hear Valkov’s furious tirade over the crunch of bone and his own stammering heartbeat. Yuri tried to block out the pain, tried to shut his mind off, tried to focus on anything but the blood in his mouth and the fire tearing through him. The shattering blows yanked him back from sweet nothingness over and over and over.

Yuri saw stars as he collided with the wall, gasping as Valkov slammed his wrist back until he dropped the scalpel. Excruciating pain erupted in his leg. Shaking and wheezing on the ground, he dared to look down and saw metal lodged in his thigh. Nausea twisted his stomach.

“You were my most prized possession, until you decided to ruin it all by _caring_. Haven’t you learnt that kindness is a weakness?” Valkov snarled as Yuri clenched trembling hands around the blade, fingers slick with blood. “I should leave you here to rot, but you still have so much more potential. You may have been able to save your _friends_ , Ivanov, but who is going to bother saving _you_?”

Yuri retched as he yanked the scalpel free. Blood poured from the wound, soaking his leg. Valkov advanced again and Yuri fought vertigo to pull himself away.

A sharp kick left him sprawled on his back, wrenching sobs from his throat as his only weapon pinged uselessly out of reach. Yuri could hear himself begging, pleading with Valkov to leave him alone, swearing he would tell nobody what he’d done because he _didn_ _’t want to die_.

“You never learn, do you.”

Yuri’s cry for help was smothered by Valkov’s hand and he was shoved through doors and down hallways. Where was everyone—why had nobody come to _save him_?

He barely recognised the control room, didn’t realise where he was until he landed on the elevator. The roof, the helicopter. Fear tightened around his chest. Valkov was planning to escape with him.

His hands slipped as he struggled to his knees, breathing in short, ragged gasps, straining his eyes as blackness crept in. Blood. He’d lost too much blood. Pain seared from his shoulder, his leg, _everywhere_. Valkov slammed his hands on the control console and turned back to him.

“I suppose I have you to thank for the computers being disabled.” Valkov stamped down on his thigh, twisting, tearing the laceration wider.

Yuri folded in on himself and screamed.

Thrown back against the railing, Yuri stumbled, knees buckling. He wanted to stop the pain. He wanted to keel over—why couldn’t the thing in his head just _let him go_? He watched, terrified as Valkov unclipped his gun and levelled it at him.

And Yuri knew it was over.

He’d survived the training, the experiments, Valkov’s cruel punishment, Levitsky and Vladislav and the beatings he’d taken and now, when he needed it most, whatever they’d done to him refused to kick in. Refused to protect him from the one thing he _wouldn_ _’t_ be able to survive.

Nothing could save him from a bullet.

Valkov was talking but Yuri couldn’t hear a single thing over his own heartbeat. Valkov’s finger curled around the trigger, Yuri closed his eyes, saw Levitsky’s face and swallowed fear and misery and regret and his own blood.

Something snapped free inside him, bursting with warmth, safe and comforting and Yuri only had a second to realise it was Wolborg before he heard the gunshot.

His mind flared, muscles burning as adrenaline surged through every inch of his body. Time stood still and the world became crystal clear.

Wolborg howled with rage and took control. He didn’t feel the bullet scrape his ear, didn’t feel the crack of metal on his jaw.

Valkov was on his back and Yuri crashed into the wall, panting and coughing blood, his legs in agony. He saw Valkov’s concerned eyes, watched him retreat a step, then two, but it wasn’t until he saw his own arms raise the gun that he knew why.

Inky black haze distorted his vision and his mind faded to a blank. Yuri felt the grip in his hands and the trigger under his finger, felt the recoil of the gun as he fired again and again and again, heard Wolborg’s fierce roar and the inhumane scream from his own lips.

His head throbbed, Wolborg vanished. Yuri slumped down against the wall, only able to see the door ahead of him, straight in his line of fire.

Minutes, hours, he had no idea how long he sat for, could barely think. The agony in his veins and the fast _thump-thump-thump_ of his heartbeat had faded to a muted drone. His eyes were heavy but he forced them to stay open. Valkov was gone but he could come back any second. Yuri couldn’t let himself break now, not when he was so close to freedom.

The door slammed, a shadow stretched over him.

Yuri clenched his eyes shut and fired blind at the figure blocking the light. The gun jerked uselessly in his hands, empty.

Drifting somewhere between consciousness and absolute dark, Yuri realised he was moving.

A rumbling vibration under his back. Something touched his face but he couldn’t lift his arms to move it. Light flashed above him, flicking white to black, white to black.

The voice in his ear reminded him of something too distant to grasp, something safe, before it faded to silence.

* * *

_Bleep. Bleep. Bleep._

Yuri turned to block out the irritating noise by his head.

_Bleep. Bleep. Bleep._

He tried to lift his arm but his limbs felt heavy. Something scratched under his nose.

Cracking open one eye, Yuri wondered whether the blinding whiteness surrounding him was what death looked like.

Feeling was slowly beginning to creep back into his hands. Fabric scratched at his fingertips.

Was he lying down?

Suddenly alert, Yuri forced himself to sit up—not easy when his body felt oddly numb—and was met by a pale blanket tucked neatly around his legs. A bed, a _hospital_ bed. The annoying beeping was coming from a machine on his right and Yuri watched his heart rate dance. He scratched his upper lip, found a tube that wound around his head and followed it with his hands to a tank.

His hazy mind struggled to catch up; if he was dead, why was he hooked up to oxygen?

The line in his arm led up to a bag of clear liquid, and as much as Yuri wanted to believe otherwise, he knew he wasn’t in the Abbey. His leg ached, the thick gauze wrapped around his thigh told him that he hadn’t been dreaming. Valkov had stabbed him, had tried to escape with him and—and he’d blacked out.

Panic rose as a lump in his throat and he fought to swallow through it. He couldn’t remember anyone coming for him, couldn’t remember _anything_ —if Valkov had been able to escape with him then _where the hell was he?_ The beeping quickened, doing nothing to calm his nerves.

The door opened and Yuri froze, relief flooding through him so fast that his breath caught and even the machine was temporarily silenced.

“You’re awake,” Kai said, his eyes wide as if he wasn’t sure whether what he was seeing was real or not. Yuri couldn’t care less if Kai wasn’t real, so thankful to see someone familiar that he could no longer hold back the tears. Kai was at his side in an instant, hesitant to reach out to him until Yuri flung himself into his chest and latched on tight.

Suddenly the pain didn’t matter any more, the fact that he had no idea where he was or what had happened, no idea whether he was awake or dreaming, alive or not, _none_ of it mattered any more. Kai gave a breathy chuckle, gently rubbing his hands along Yuri’s spine as his sobs dissolved into hiccoughs.

“Yuri, talk to me,” Kai whispered.

Yuri away tears with a shaky hand, looked up into surprisingly kind red-brown eyes and smiled. The sight of Kai breaking into a wide, relieved grin brought a bubble of laughter from Yuri’s lips, bright and genuine, as he realised just how awkward their embrace must have been for the other boy.

Kai pulled a chair up to the side of the bed, urging Yuri to have a sip of water and silently reaching out to steady the glass. “It’s over, Yuri. Biovolt’s finished, my grandfather’s under arrest in Saint Petersburg—the entire company’s under investigation.”

Yuri’s mind staggered around the words as they hit him, barely able to believe it was true. Were they… were they free?

“ _Yes_ ,” Kai insisted, Yuri not even aware he’d spoken. Kai laughed at the sudden onslaught of questions tumbling from Yuri’s mouth, settling back in his seat. “Sergei and Ivan are fine. We had a team of medics in place to check everyone over, BBA Russia closed their main office so the boys could stay there. They’ve got everything they need. They’re all safe.”

“Borya?”

“He’s here, in the hospital. He desperately wants to see you but the doctors won’t let him yet. They’re concerned about—about what happened to him.” He didn’t say it directly, but Yuri knew he was talking about the file he’d sent. He wasn’t surprised the doctors were being cautious.

Laying back against his pillow, Yuri heaved a sigh allowed himself to feel a just the smallest hint of joy. Boris was alive, he’d survived the lab and was in good hands. His mind threatened to bring up others, boys that hadn’t been so lucky. “Who found me?”

“Aleksey Belkin.”

Yuri shot upright, jostling his leg and wincing from the pain. Kai looked as though he was about to help but Yuri waved him away. “He’s alive?”

Kai simply nodded, matching the growing smile on Yuri’s face. “He’s helping the BBA, they’re starting to trace the boys’ families and reunite them but there’s a lot of missing paperwork, Aleksey’s filling in gaps as much as he can,” he explained, “I called him. He’s glad you’re alright.”

Yuri remembered how bizarre it had felt to try one of his cigarettes, Belkin’s laughter and his own childish reaction. He’d thrown the matches as if the man were a friend not an enemy, and it had only been recently he’d discovered that it was true. He tried to recall what he’d done with Belkin’s tin and froze as the thought stirred up a face he never wanted to see again.

“Valkov—” Yuri whispered, keeping his eyes focused on his legs, “I shot him, I think—did I?”

If it wasn’t for the quiet exhale at his bedside, Yuri might have assumed Kai had left. He dared a glance and saw anger and disappointment etched on Kai’s face. “I don’t know. There’s still a lot of the Abbey left to search but… they haven’t been able to find him.”

Commotion suddenly erupted in the hall and the door slammed open, startling them both. Kai was immediately on his feet, shielding Yuri behind him.

“I’m so sorry, I couldn’t stop him…” Whatever else the woman in the doorway was saying drowned before it reached Yuri’s ears. There, in the middle of the room, with silver-grey hair, pale skin and eyes such a vividly bright green they couldn’t have belonged to anyone else, was _Boris_.

His name came out as nothing more than a breathy whisper as Yuri broke, tears gathering again as his oldest friend, the boy he cared about and trusted more than _anything_ in the world, rushed over and collapsed at his side.

Boris told him to stop crying, but Yuri spotted the wetness on Boris’ face as the boy nearly lifted him clean off the bed into a crushing embrace.

Trembling with happiness because they'd _survived_ , Yuri buried his face in Boris’ shoulder and wept.


	34. Chapter 34

The story of what had happened the night had been repeated on the news for the entire week Yuri had been sat in bed. Bored of flicking from channel to channel and irritated with being confined to his hospital room, Yuri switched off the TV altogether and threw the remote down by his feet. On the footage, behind a reporter, a wall of police and the mass of bodies and coaches by the iron fence, Yuri had caught the blurry image of Belkin carrying him from the main doors and into an ambulance.

He still couldn’t fully recall it, just flashes of Belkin’s voice, the clicking of an empty gun, the bright lights burning his eyes in the moments he’d been vaguely awake in what he’d assumed to be the ambulance… and then he’d woken up in a bed, clean and warm and slightly delirious from whatever drug they’d been giving him.

The doctor had called it morphine. Yuri was just thankful when they’d finally taken him off it.

Kai at the hospital for most of the week, keeping him company while he was bedridden and only complaining once about having to help Yuri to the bathroom. When he wasn’t outside Yuri’s door making phone calls or talking to the staff, Kai spent his time explaining to Yuri what the doctors and nurses were doing to him and what was happening at the BBA facility the rest of the rescued boys were staying at. Despite the mayhem the boys were causing and their unwillingness to cooperate—Belkin had been called in more than once, his sheer presence as a former Abbey guard calming things down almost instantly—they’d already managed to track down some of their families.

Yuri didn’t miss the way Kai’s shoulders dropped in defeat when he’d revealed that not all of them had been so excited by the idea of getting their children back. Kai had offered to find Yuri’s father for him but he’d immediately refused without thinking about the consequences. Where was he going to live if not with his father?

Of course, Kai had already figured that out as well. He and the others who they hadn’t been able to reunite with parents would be staying in a hotel at the BBA’s Russian headquarters while the authorities ultimately decided what to do with them. As long as Yuri wasn’t separated from the few people he trusted, he was happy to go anywhere. When he’d told Kai, the boy had gained a thoughtful expression and left Yuri’s room to make a call.

Boris had been in and out of the room as if he’d been tied by elastic, apparently not caring about the poor nurse that was constantly running around after him. They still wanted to run tests, Kai had explained—after the fourth time Boris had been retrieved—they weren’t certain what the drugs used to sedate him and the other boys in the lab had contained and still had concerns over the injuries he’d sustained in training.

Boris, of course, had assured them he was fine despite the fact that even walking the short distance from his bed to the hallway left him breathless. Yuri had _tried_ to talk some sense into him, but Boris was nothing if not ridiculously stubborn and had reappeared again only five minutes later.

“Good news,” Kai announced as he walked into the room, startling Yuri from the magazine he was flicking through. “The doctor’s happy for you to be discharged.”

“Really?” Yuri sat upright and swung his legs off the bed, instantly regretting it when pain flared in his left thigh. The doctor that had followed Kai in pushing a folded chair had immediately come to his side but Yuri waved him off. “I was starting think I’d be stuck here for the rest of my life.”

Kai made a non-committal noise and handed him two metal sticks. “Crutches,” he said simply, “They don’t recommend you do much with your leg for at least another week.”

It made sense, Yuri knew, but he certainly wasn’t happy about it. Fortunately the blade hadn’t sliced through anything important, but the wound had taken multiple stitches to close and Yuri was certain he was going to end up with a scar that rivalled the one on Sergei’s chest.

Getting used to the crutches turned out to be a lot more difficult than Yuri had anticipated, even with the gentle coaching from his doctor, but he refused to use the monstrosity Kai was leaning on. When the doctor mentioned it again, Yuri non-too-politely reminded him that he’d suffered a lot worse in the Abbey and managed just fine, so no, he _didn_ _’t_ need to be carted around in a wheelchair as if he was incapable of looking after himself. Kai simply chuckled and took pity on him, signalling for Yuri to hand over the impossible sticks he was supposed to be walking with and showing him how to use them as if he’d been born doing it.

Yuri wanted to make a snide comment about how Kai had clearly been spoilt when he’d been injured, but the boy’s phone rang and interrupted his angry monologue. The car that would take them out to the hotel had arrived, which meant he’d finally be able to Sergei and Ivan again.

“I should probably warn you, my team are there with them.”

The off-hand comment threw Yuri’s far from perfect rhythm and he stumbled painfully into the wall. “Could’ve told me that _before_ I agreed to come with you.”

Kai merely gave him a knowing look, holding the door open to the reception area. “You wouldn’t have agreed if you knew.”

“That’s the point.”

They ended up having to wait for the nurse at the desk to fuss around with forms. Yuri stood silently and seethed.

“They’ve been helping out a lot, you know,” Kai said as Yuri signed the letter that would discharge him from the hospital. “Since I told them what was going—”

Yuri jerked back in shock to stare at him. “You _told_ them?”

“Not in detail.” Kai picked up the envelope the nurse slid over the counter and a bag of Yuri’s belongings. Once Yuri realised the only thing in the bag was the Abbey uniform he’d arrived in he promptly handed it back and told the nurse to destroy it.

Kai continued as he watched Yuri decide between the wheelchair ramp and the steps outside the hospital. “Rei knew I was working on something, he didn’t seem to think I should be doing it alone.”

“As if the risk of getting caught wasn’t already high enough.” The ramp won, though Yuri felt immensely stupid going back and forth and sneered in response to Kai’s teasing smirk.

“True. Still, it’s shown me just how much I can trust them.”

“Careful, Kai. You might actually start to _like_ them.”

The car was waiting for them just down the road—something sleek and expensive looking—though Yuri stopped on the pavement and took a slow, deep breath of fresh air. Kai didn’t seem to mind, content to let him adjust to being outside again. The sun was low, but by some miracle there wasn’t an inch of cloud to be seen. Yuri lifted his face to the fading orange above him and closed his eyes, it’d been far too long since he’d felt sunlight.

“Vasily had the bright idea of holding friendly matches to keep the boys entertained, of course Takao was the first one to sign up. Don’t be surprised if he tries to challenge you to a rematch as soon as you walk in.” Kai said as their driver opened Yuri’s door and helped him inside.

“He’ll be waiting a while.” Yuri indicated irritably to his leg, if the doctors didn’t want him to walk on it then it probably wasn’t a good idea for him to throw himself back into blading. “Plus I have no idea where Wolborg is.”

“Ivan has her, don’t worry. He somehow convinced Mr Dickenson to let him loose in the engineering suite, he’s practically moved in.”

“I better still have a blade left when he’s done.” Yuri couldn’t help but laugh, not at all surprised. Ivan had been itching to look around the BBA’s facilities since the second Yuri had mentioned it. “Did he… how did he find you?”

Kai shot a grin across the car that pushed away the sour feeling in Yuri’s chest. “He just waltzed through the front door of BBA Russia like he owned the place and demanded to see me.”

“Was he hurt?”

“He was pretty beaten up. Refused to go to a hospital until he’d told me everything, so I called the facility medic in to check on him,” Kai explained, shaking his head when Yuri asked if it had been serious. “Nothing major, he needed a few stitches and must’ve been sore as hell but he’s recovered. He was back on his feet and out of hospital before the doctors could stop him, trying to get things moving faster than they could. I still don’t think he understands just how delicate this whole operation was.”

Yuri shrugged, easily remembering Ivan’s impatient pushing when he’d seemed reluctant to sneak around the Abbey. “He doesn’t like waiting. He tried to convince me to go with him the morning he left, but…”

“You couldn’t leave them behind?” Kai asked, understanding clear on his face.

Yuri shook head and turned silently to the window, still unsure whether he’d made the right choice. If he’d gone with Ivan the night he’d escaped he could’ve got to Kai a lot faster, maybe even been able to hurry things up. It had only taken three days for the authorities and whoever else Kai had involved to overrun the Abbey after the inspection, but it had been three days in which _anything_ could’ve happened. Boris had still been down in the lab, having who knew what done to him, and if Sergei hadn’t been on the fourth floor at exactly the right time, then Yuri might not have made it at all.

And there was also his own stupid decision, so _utterly_ stupid, to go back to his room when every other boy was gathered in the food hall. Where Valkov had caught him and nearly managed to escape with him, or worse. Yuri rubbed absently at the bandaging around his leg, feeling a deep ache setting in.

A cough beside him caught his attention and Kai reached forward to the bag in the passenger seat. “I bought some painkillers if you—”

“No.” The word was out of Yuri’s mouth before he could stop it and he sighed heavily. “Sorry, it’s just things like that make me start thinking of...”

“Don’t apologise. It’ll take a while to get used to being out, you can’t expect it to happen overnight.”

Yuri stared out at the pavement and watched a woman and a young boy laugh as they walked. He’d been in the Abbey, surrounded by its walls and suffocated by its punishing regime, for nine terrifying years. Even though he knew Kai was right, Yuri couldn’t deny that a small part of him had believed he would just be able to walk out of the grounds and suddenly have a normal life.

It struck him that he had no real idea of what ‘normal’ would be like. His only experience outside the Abbey had been what little he remembered from before his mother had disappeared, the months he’d been with Boris on Saint Petersburg’s streets, and now the week he’d spent in hospital being watched over by real doctors, instead of the twisted scientists Biovolt employed. He pictured a house like those they’d driven past, the inside not too different from where he’d lived with his father. He was living with Boris, because he couldn’t imagine him _not_ being there, but also Sergei and Ivan as well which, the more he thought it over, wasn’t surprising at all.

He wondered whether they would have to go to school or work somewhere, not sure how they would go about doing either, and whether the four of them would even be allowed to live alone at all. If they had to live with an adult, then Yuri knew his first choice would be Belkin, until he remembered that the man already had a family of his own to go back to. Maybe if one of them was old enough it wouldn’t matter, surely Sergei could be considered an adult.

A gentle push on his shoulder nudged him from his thoughts and Yuri realised that they’d stopped while he’d been miles away. The driver opened the door for him again, though getting out of the car turned out to be more painful than getting in. Kai leaned over to grab the crutches and held them upright for Yuri to hoist himself out without jostling his leg too much, and he quietly murmured his thanks as the driver left. Yuri looked up at BBA Russia’s headquarters in awe. The building was huge, not surprising considering how big the sport was, but Yuri certainly hadn’t expected it to dwarf the Director’s— _former_ Director’s—offices in Saint Petersburg.

Kai led him inside after he’d slowly navigated the steps, explaining that the hotel was behind the main facility, somewhere for competitors and staff to stay whilst tournaments and events were running. Yuri heard a familiar voice as they entered the lobby, spotted the man it belonged to up at the reception counter, and stood frozen to the spot for a long minute just staring at the man’s back.

Belkin didn’t spot him until he was a good few paces from the desk, one hand holding open a newer, shinier cigarette tin, the other paused half way to his mouth. He smirked, shrugged dramatically, and Yuri was sure the only thing keeping him on his feet was the crutches because he was looking at the man who had _literally_ saved his life. “Told them it’d take more than that to keep you down.”

“ _Thank you_ ,” Yuri blurted out, ducking his head to the floor as tears stung his eyes. A hand landed on his head and ruffled his hair.

“Hey.” Belkin presssed gently on Yuri’s forehead to see his face. “The kids wrecking havoc on the hotel and terrifying the staff? That’s _your_ hard work.”

Yuri gave a flustered huff and frantically shook his head. “I wouldn’t have—if you hadn’t stopped Lev—”

“Don’t,” Belkin said. Yuri glanced up and saw concern and understanding on the man’s tired face. “Don’t go there, Yuri, not now. You’ve got some catching up to do first.” He tilted his head over at a far door where Yuri could make out muffled shouting. “I’ll be in and out of here for a while, from the looks of it, we can always talk about later.”

Yuri smiled up at him and nodded. “I’d like that.”

Belkin gave his hair another swipe, called out a goodbye to the woman at reception and went to leave. He got as far as the main entrance when he turned again, cigarette hanging from his lips. “Oh, Kai,” he said, “that thing you called about? If you can get them to agree to it, I think I can sort something out.”

“Great.” Kai grinned—actually full-on _grinned_ —as if Belkin had just given him the best news in a while. “Thanks, Aleksey.”

Yuri stood silently and watched until Belkin was out of sight. When he turned to ask Kai what Belkin had meant, Kai was already half way across the lobby. Kai looked over his shoulder and must have spotted the confusion on Yuri’s face, though all he did was tell him not to worry about it.

“Sure you’re ready for this?”

Yuri opened his mouth, about to say yes, but then abruptly closed it again. He _had_ been ready, all through signing his papers at the hospital, the car ride to the BBA, had been ready right up to the point he’d spotted Belkin at the desk. Suddenly he was completely unsure what to expect. His friends—the three people he trusted the most—and Kai’s own teammates were in the next room waiting for him. He knew they would be happy to see him, or at least hoped they would, but just how much did they know about what he’d gone through to get here? About what Kai had done, how much they’d risked?

Yuri wasn’t sure he could simply walk in and pretend nothing had happened, as if it had all been easy. Wasn’t sure he could just sit down and talk or eat or whatever ‘normal’ people did and pretend that the gauze around his leg _wasn_ _’t_ covering a stab wound inflicted by the man he’d won their freedom from. The man who had tried to kill him and who, as far as Kai could tell him, still hadn’t been found. A shiver rattled his spine and Kai noticed.

“Something wrong?”

“No…” Yuri shook his head at Kai’s concern. “I think it’s only just hit me, what all this means. I guess I wasn’t certain you could manage it.”

“ _We_ managed it, Yura,” Kai corrected, his voice low as he retraced his steps across the lobby to were Yuri couldn’t move his feet. “Aleksey’s right, I couldn’t have done _any_ of this without your help.”

“But you had a lot to lose—”

“And you didn’t?” The sheer disbelief on Kai’s face almost brought tears to Yuri’s eyes again. Kai awkwardly grasped his arms at the elbow and gave him a gentle shake. “Don’t let me take all the credit for this, Ivan told me what was happening before he escaped, and I have a feeling things only got worse. You literally risked everything, including your own life, on the possibility that someone you barely knew _might_ be able to get you out. Nobody would’ve walked out of those gates a week ago if it hadn’t been for you, _nobody_.”

Yuri’s mind reeled at the sincerity and gratitude in Kai’s voice, something that was so rarely directed at him that it almost hurt. He carefully wiped the wetness from his eyes with his thumb and met Kai’s sympathetic gaze with one of pride. “Thank you.”

Kai gave his arms a squeeze and tilted his head. “Do you want to see them or not?”

The noise heightened as Kai held the door open and Yuri heard his name before something heavy sent him stumbling back. Ivan stared up at him, his grin impossibly wide, and Yuri couldn’t help but laugh. Sergei stepped in, forcing Ivan to give him space and Yuri spotted Boris just behind, leaning against the back of a chair with a lazy smirk. To his side, the beaming faces of the Bladebreakers met him, coming forward and shaking his hand, taking it in turns to hug him—he barely managed to stop flinching—and talking far too fast in a language he barely understood.

Takao held his arms wide, indicating the room and everything beyond it, and welcomed him to the BBA. He was about to say more, eagerness clear on his face, when Kai took him by the arm and led him and his teammates back to the middle of the room. Yuri was transfixed by how easily the five of them slotted together, as if they’d been friends for years, and hoped that one day his own ‘team’ would fit together just as well.

Sergei’s hand fell on his shoulder, drawing him back to the three people around him. “How do you feel?”

“Good,” Yuri said honestly, “I feel really good, actually.”

Boris scoffed, pulling Yuri forward into an impromptu hug, apparently not bothered that the crutches were digging into his back. “Glad to be out of that stupid hospital, I’m guessing.”

“They wouldn’t have had to lock you in if you hadn’t tried to escape,” Sergei muttered, sounding like he’d already repeated the same line over and over. Boris merely rolled his eyes.

Ivan took Yuri’s arm, tugging him gently towards where the Bladebreakers had gathered on the floor. “Come on, there’s food out on the table and Max brought this game down, it’s not Russian but he’s explaining it. It’s pretty fun.”

Yuri nodded and Ivan rushed off to rejoin as Kai called out it was his turn. Yuri looked from the faint bruising still noticeable on Ivan’s face to the scars he knew hid under Sergei’s loose shirt and the marks littering Boris’ bare arms, down to where he was tentatively touching the floor with his left foot, and decided that despite everything, he truly had never felt better.

He settled down on the couch beside Boris, a glass of water in one hand and a bowl of potato chips in the other, and slowly curled himself up at his friend’s side. He’d found out about the chips in hospital, as had Boris, apparently, if the rate he was pinching them at was any indication. Yuri watched him roll dice and move a small dog around the board, before he abruptly threw the paper money he was holding down and declared he hated the game. Sergei treated him to a glare but Takao snickered and Max assured him it was just bad luck. Rei looked overly pleased as he reached out to pick up the money and add it to his own.

Kai sat opposite, beside a smartly dressed man Yuri hadn’t spotted walk in. The pair of them poured over the paperwork in Kai’s lap, their quiet talking drowned by the drama unfolding around the game board. Yuri heard Biovolt being mentioned more than once and Kai looked tired but determined as he scrawled notes over the pages.

Movement beside him made him look down to see Boris’ hand closing around his own, and with a sigh, Yuri leaned over to rest his head against Boris’ shoulder. Ivan cried out in disdain as Sergei knocked him over the head for stealing from him, Kai’s team laughing as he spluttered useless excuses in a mix of Russian and broken English. Even Sergei cracked the smallest smile.

They still had a long way to go and nothing was going to change overnight, just as Kai had said, but Yuri knew that as long as the four of them were together, as long as they kept moving forward and didn’t look back, they would eventually make it.

The Abbey wouldn’t hold them down any longer, Yuri was sure of that.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few scenes that wouldn't fit in the original epilogue, but I've decided to upload for completion's sake :)

“Ah, Yuri, just the person.” One of Mr Dickenson’s Japanese aides, whose name Yuri had once again managed to forget, rushed up to his side. “The Chairman wanted me to let you know that all of your medical results have come back just fine.”

It took Yuri a good few seconds to process what the man was trying to say to him. His English still wasn’t great, despite hours of private tutoring, and his understanding only became worse when he had to contend with a strong foreign accent. He understood why Dickenson had brought over extra staff to look after the boys after the closure of Biovolt, but that had been two months ago now—why Yuri was still having to deal with caretakers who didn’t speak the same language as him was a mystery.

“Thank you,” Yuri said eventually.

“You’re welcome. Have you seen Boris?” The aide was already glancing around the corridor as if Boris might just appear through a wall.

“Maybe in his room?” he suggested, regretting it the moment the man raced away as he knew Boris was probably in no mood to see anyone, let alone _speak_ to them.

Yuri sighed as he recalled the day Boris had locked himself away, only a week ago, and a faint smile curled his lips. They’d been sat—Boris, Sergei and himself—in a room with with the authorities, again, being questioned relentlessly, _again_ , about the days leading up to the World Championships as if they were playing some bizarre memory game. Boris’ voice had finally broken—Yuri had started to think it never would—and he had looked just as stunned as the rest of them by the ridiculous squeak that had escaped his lips, face flushed red with embarrassment. Boris had stood up immediately, marched himself all the way to his room and solidly refused to say a single word since.

His stomach growled suddenly, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten anything since early that morning. Apparently having had such a strict meal plan for the past nine years meant that his body was so used to eating at set times, Yuri was unable to break away from the routine. He toyed with the idea of making his way to the canteen at the back of the hotel complex but decided against it, having had enough of trying to decipher whatever everyone else was saying to him and feeling as if he was on display.

So far, every person who had dealt with him had acted as if he were fragile, almost as if they were afraid of breaking him. Yuri wanted to remind them exactly what he had gone through in the Abbey to prove that he _wasn_ _’t_ delicate, but to do so would only throw him into another long debate. He stopped by a vending machine near the the hotel reception instead, playing with the coins in his pocket—an allowance generously funded by the BBA as they were still officially under their care—as he looked over his minimal options.

When a deep voice whispered Yuri’s name in his ear, he all but leapt a mile in the air and flung his change across the floor.

He whirled around, intent on yelling at whoever had deliberately scared the life from him, and gaped when he realised who it was. Boris stared down at him with a lecherous smirk on his lips, Yuri slapped him across the face in retaliation.

Boris cupped his burning cheek in his hand and laughed, leaving Yuri in awe of just how much _older_ his friend sounded. Yuri’s own voice had broken just over a year ago, though he didn’t think he sounded all that different, but Boris… it was like listening to another person entirely. Gone was the mocking jeer Yuri was so familiar with, replaced by a husky, almost guttural growl.

The fact that one of the BBA employees had been looking for Boris suddenly became unimportant.

“Are you ordering something from that?” Boris’ teased, nodding towards the vending machine. “Because you might want to try putting _money_ in it.”

Deeper voice or not, Boris was still capable of taunting. Yuri was so distracted though that his thoughts of eating had been temporarily overridden. “You sound so—”

“ _Mature_?” Boris offered slyly, quirking an eyebrow at Yuri’s slack-jawed expression. “Work in progress, sounded like a five-year-old when I was in therapy this morning.”

Yuri laughed, Boris’ carefree admission breaking him out of his stupor. “I’ll have to get one of those recorders the press have,” he said, “make sure I catch it next time it happens.” From the smirk on Boris’ lips it was clear that he couldn’t care less if Yuri teased him for his voice.

“So, I bought you something.” Boris unfurled his hands from behind his back—Yuri hadn’t even noticed he’d been hiding anything, something about being away from the Abbey making him a lot less cautious of his surroundings—and produced a small, flat box with a garish bow on the corner.

Yuri took it and cracked open the lid, revealing half a dozen little cubes wrapped in shiny gold foil. “You bought this?” he asked, eyeing the cubes suspiciously. The BBA may have given them an allowance, but Yuri couldn’t see any obvious purpose to the box he was holding, let alone a reason for Boris to actually spend money on it.

Boris tilted his head to the side and shrugged lightly. “I didn’t exactly _buy_ it. My therapist kept offering them to me and I can’t stand them, thought you might want to try.”

Yuri quirked an eyebrow. “You stole it, then.”

“He keeps trying to get me to take the whole box so he clearly doesn’t want them,” Boris said, frowning at Yuri’s apparent disapproval. “At least if you have them then they’re not wasted, right?”

It was a poor excuse, but Yuri could still see something in Boris’ flawed logic. He was still no closer to working out what ‘they’ were, however, as Boris seemed to assume that Yuri knew exactly what he was holding. Not wanting to appear stupid by asking, Yuri lifted the box to his nose and took an experimental sniff. It smelled like something sweet mixed with paper glue, but that was about it.

Boris chuckled, picking up on Yuri’s confusion and finally putting him out of his misery. “They’re chocolates,” he said, plucking one of the cubes from the box and peeling away the foil. “These ones are caramel—too sickly for me.”

He held the chocolate by Yuri’s lips and Yuri jerked away slightly. “How do you know I’ll like it?” He wasn’t exactly against trying new things—unlike Boris, who had spent hours in the canteen making sure he’d tried everything at least once—but if Boris wasn’t fond of them, Yuri was almost certain he would feel the same.

“Just try it, for god’s sake,” Boris said, rolling his eyes.

Huffing, Yuri opened his mouth so Boris could pop the chocolate on his tongue and his eyes widened in surprise. Boris was clearly mad; Yuri had never tasted anything so _delicious_ in his life. The chocolate cube cracked open when he bit down and an intensely sweet filling oozed over his tongue.

Yuri tore into another chocolate and stuffed it in his mouth before he’d even finished the first, closing his eyes in pleasure. When they’d been given freshly cooked meals after leaving the Abbey, they had been such an immense improvement on the gruel they were used to eating that Yuri had honestly thought nothing could beat that. The chocolate had just topped his expectations again.

Boris laughed. “Thought you’d like them.”

“Like them?” Yuri repeated, licking caramel from his teeth, “I _love_ them. Thanks, Borya.”

“You’re welcome.” Boris knelt down to the floor to collect the change Yuri had dropped—and even with the remaining chocolates stealing his attention, Yuri didn’t miss the way he held his knee tight as he stood up again. A bottle of something fizzy dropped from the machine, hissing when Boris opened it. He stood in silence as he drank, watching Yuri polish off the chocolate in one sitting with a playful smile.

Yuri suddenly became immensely thankful that they were the only ones in the corridor. He couldn’t care less what they looked like to everyone else, but they’d been warned so much about the potential dangers of the media already that he didn’t want particularly want to risk a photograph by some misunderstanding journalist to leak out to the public.

* * *

Yuri caught his reflection in the mirror across his room as he dressed, momentarily stunned by just how _red_ his hair was. He hadn’t really noticed before—it wasn’t as if they had been allowed to admire themselves in a mirror at the Abbey, and in the three months since being released the only reason he came up to his room was to collapse onto his bed and sleep. He finished pulling his shirt over his head and walked back into the bathroom for a closer look. He’d had it cut short again on Kai’s suggestion, once the red had grown out far enough, and Yuri hoped to never see the black strands that had littered the barber’s floor around his chair ever again.

Running his hand through it, Yuri still couldn’t decide whether he preferred it as it was now. Much like everything else that reminded him of Biovolt, Yuri couldn’t help but want to get rid of the infamous ‘devil horns’ that made him easily recognisable in the sporting world. His therapist had told him that disguising things was only a temporary fix, that he would only be able to move on with his life if he worked through and _dealt_ with everything he’d suffered at Valkov’s hands.

Yuri scoffed, what did his therapist know about what he’d been through, anyway? Yuri squeezed far too much paste onto his toothbrush in frustration, angrily brushed his teeth and tore his eyes away from his reflection for long enough to dry his face.

He jumped as strong arms suddenly wrapped around his waist from behind, glancing up at the mirror in alarm, panic starting to bubble in his gut until he realised it was only Boris. His know-it-all therapist had also warned him about possible paranoia, and although Yuri had initially rolled his eyes at the notion, he couldn’t help but wonder if, maybe, she had been partially right.

Boris’ eyes were crinkled with amusement and Yuri instantly relaxed, leaning back slightly against his chest. They hadn’t seen much of each other for the last few weeks; Yuri had been at Kai’s side almost constantly, in and out of meetings with officials and the authorities who still seemed as if they were testing every word they said for honesty, and Boris had been in and out of medical appointments and physiotherapy sessions after his already weak knee had given out when he’d been doing nothing more than walking down a corridor.

Yuri couldn’t help but notice that Boris had managed to gain a good few inches in the last month, as if leaving the Abbey had somehow triggered a sudden growth spurt. They’d been the same height for as long as Yuri could remember, if anything, Boris had been ever so slightly _shorter_ than he was. Now, Boris was tall enough to peek right over the top of Yuri’s head.

“You should keep it like that,” Boris murmured, balancing his chin on Yuri’s shoulder.

Yuri blinked in confusion, quirking an eyebrow at the other boy’s reflection. “Keep what, my hair?”

Boris hummed, pulling back slightly so he could lean his head against the back of Yuri’s. Yuri would have been lying if he claimed _not_ to have seen his small, contented smile before it was hidden. A flicker of a memory pulled at Yuri’s mind and he ducked his eyes to the basin, chewing absently on his lip; the few occasions back at the Abbey when he’d been with Boris—lying on his bunk, at the edge of the outdoor training area—where he’d been sure their friendship had touched on something else, something _more_. He wondered whether Boris had noticed it, whether he’d noticed it was happening again now, but couldn’t bring himself to ask.

Boris sighed heavily behind him, and Yuri felt his body sag slightly, his tight grip around Yuri’s waist seemingly the only thing keeping Boris on his feet. “This is so tiring,” he said quietly.

“I know. Seriy thinks we can be out of here soon, though.”

“Not soon enough.” Boris let his arms fall from around Yuri, stepping back to perch on the edge of the bathtub. Yuri watched him absently rub his thumb over his knee.

“Something bothering you?”

Boris lifted his head to look up at Yuri but couldn’t quite meet his eyes. He opened his mouth but quickly closed it again and swallowed, his gaze flicking to the bathroom door. Yuri took the hint and kicked it shut, not that there should be anyone else hovering in his room, but he understood Boris’ anxiety. A long minute passed, and Yuri eventually took a seat at Boris’ side when it became evident he wasn’t really that willing to part with his thoughts.

“Whatever it is, Borya, you can tell me.”

Boris nodded minutely, releasing a breath Yuri hadn’t realised he’d been holding. “Do you think they’ll really be able to get us somewhere together?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

Yuri was both stunned and grateful that Boris wanted to stay with him. They hadn’t been apart for over nine years, not really, even for the year Boris had been away they’d still been in the same building. Always within a moment’s walk from each other, Yuri doubted any corridor in the Abbey had been walked as much as the one that linked rooms 212 and 309.

A smile ghosted over Yuri’s lips, spreading wider when he linked his fingers with Boris’ own and he didn’t pull away. “I won’t let them separate us, Borya, I’ll promise you that,” he said, leaning sideways to rest his head on Boris’ shoulder. “Do you honestly think they’d trust us living alone?”

Boris chuckled, the invisible weight lifting from his neck. “I wouldn’t.”

“Exactly. Besides, it’s you and me against the world remember?” Yuri tilted his head slightly to take in Boris’ reflective expression. He didn’t have to say anything, it was clear he hadn’t forgotten their age-old promise. “Borya and Yura against the might of Palace Square’s pockets.”

Boris grinned, glancing down at Yuri with humour sparkling in his eyes. “More like Borya _alone_ against the might of Palace Square’s pockets. I did the hard work, all _you_ had to do was stand there and look lost,” he said, raising a sly eyebrow at the mock-disbelief that settled on Yuri’s face. “You really were a natural at that, by the way.”

“Hey, I did steal a wallet once,” Yuri spluttered, jerking away from Boris’ and scowling at him.

Boris laughed. “Yeah, two seconds later the guy caught on and shouted at you for it.” He glanced over at Yuri’s indignant expression and bit down on his lip to try and silence his laughter. “You cried and gave it back, remember?”

Someone knocked on the main door to Yuri’s room, effectively cutting off his retort. Not that he could say anything to defend himself, he really had just stood there in tears and handed back the man’s wallet whilst Boris furiously waved his arms in the air at the other end of the square. He’d only been on the streets for a few weeks.

“Who is it?” Yuri called, hoping that it was just another BBA employee trying to be helpful so he could send them away and carry on reminiscing with Boris.

“Kai.”

Almost instantly, Boris’ humour vanished and was replaced with a darkening scowl. Yuri hoped it was only because he was jealous of Yuri’s developing friendship with Kai, and _not_ because he was ungrateful for what Kai had managed to achieve for them.

Yuri unlatched the door and pulled it open, Kai stood on the other side, buried in his mobile as usual. Kai glanced up, seemingly stunned that the door was actually open, and Yuri waited for a few seconds until he dragged Kai into an embrace. He hadn’t yet been able to properly thank Kai for all he had done, and he hoped his intense gratitude was clear enough for Kai to pick up on.

Kai’s arms settled loosely—uncertain—around Yuri’s waist, apparently unsure what to actually do in such an intimate situation. It confirmed Yuri’s suspicions that Kai struggled with physical contact, if nothing else.

Twisting slightly, Yuri caught sight of Boris hovering in the bathroom doorway with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed and lips curled in a sneer; a look of pure disdain, aimed at Kai, unsurprisingly. For all Boris had claimed that he _wasn_ _’t_ jealous of Kai, he made a very poor job of proving it. Yuri had tried to tell him that he had nothing to be jealous of; Kai could never _replace_ him after all, but Boris had refused to listen.

“Yura, let go,” Kai said, arms held rigid at his sides. Yuri took pity on him and did as he was told, feeling Boris step up close behind him a second later. Kai merely nodded at him, they were as bad as each other. “I just got off a call with Aleksey—”

“Belkin?” Yuri’s eyes shot wide, they hadn’t heard from the former guard for over a month. “How is he?”

Kai shrugged, taking a step away from the door to let Boris and himself out. “He’s fine, he’s been working non-stop trying to sort out a place for you to live, thinks he’s finally found something.”

“Really?” Yuri asked, glancing up at Boris with an elated grin. “For all of us? Seriy and Vanya as well?”

“If they want.” Kai nodded. “I still don’t know what’s happening with getting Vanya into school, but Aleksey said Seriy should be old enough to sign off on the house. Just a case of me applying for the funding then, probably take a month or so to go through. After that, it’s yours.”

Yuri forgot completely about Kai’s social awkwardness and threw himself at him, muffling his laughter in Kai’s shoulder.

* * *

Even before he had made it to the hotel lounge, Yuri could distinctly hear Boris shouting, angry with someone. Yuri wasn’t sure who until he heard Ivan yelling back in retaliation. He sighed, stopping just short of the doorway. He’d almost got to the point of actually enjoying staying at the BBA complex, especially the weeks Kai was over from Japan with the other Bladebreakers, but now, with two weeks still to go before they officially owned their own house, Yuri couldn’t wait to get out.

Boris had been prescribed a cocktail of medication that had, almost immediately, started wreaking havoc on his mental stability. His unpredictable mood-swings had been driving Yuri _insane_.

Nobody noticed him enter the room, too focused on the rising argument. Sergei had stepped in at some point, restraining Boris against his chest with his arms pinned at his sides. Two of Kai’s teammates were in the room—thankfully, because there was only one of Sergei—and Ivan was almost strangling himself with his own shirt to get free of Rei’s seemingly vice-like grip. Max, who even Kai had admitted was nothing short of a miracle worker when it came to turning arguments into civilised discussions, didn’t seem to be having much luck trying to calm anything down.

Everyone was shouting at everyone, the noise growing so loud that Yuri wanted to cover his ears. Voices piled on top of each other—three loud, intense Russians, underpinned by Max’s gentle English and whatever Rei was trying to say—he couldn’t even make sense of what the argument was about. He drew a deep breath, took a step forward and focused every ounce of his irritation into his voice.

“ _Enough_!”

It worked, the room falling into silence almost immediately. Even the two Bladebreakers who, unless Kai had started giving them lessons, didn’t understand him seemed to get the hint from the tone of his voice alone. Speaking of Kai… Yuri glanced around quickly but couldn’t see him anywhere. Probably a good thing; Yuri wouldn’t have put it past Boris to try hitting Kai as well.

Boris was the first to recover, seizing the opportunity to lurch out of Sergei’s slackened grip and punching Ivan so hard in the stomach that he staggered away and crumpled backwards over the coffee table, sending drinks flying. Sergei’s fist lashed out instantly, catching Boris square on the back of his head and sending him sprawling on the carpet.

Nobody moved for what felt to Yuri like hours. Max looked utterly stunned, eyes wide as he pressed his hand over his mouth. Ivan slowly pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the table, his face twisted in pain. Sergei had made the decision to literally kneel on Boris’ back, effectively pinning him to the floor despite his loud protesting. Yuri caught Rei staring at something over his shoulder and turned to where Takao stood in the doorway behind him.

He’d never seen someone look so utterly _horrified_ before.

Yuri’s laughter was enough to break the thick atmosphere that had settled in the room, startling Takao into ramming his shoulder against the doorframe, though Yuri couldn’t help but wonder whether it was shock or the fact that he’d probably never heard him laugh before, maybe didn’t even think he was capable of it. His mood sank slightly at the idea; they had a lot of work to do if they planned to pull their reputation away from the cruelty of Biovolt, that was for certain.

Takao cleared his throat nervously, raising a hand in Yuri’s direction. “Morning, Kai just sent me to say breakfast’s ready.”

Yuri nodded as Takao’s two friends thanked him. He frowned over at where Sergei was still refusing to let Boris up, talking quietly with him in an attempt to calm him down. It was clear it wasn’t working, and Yuri knew from experience that he wasn’t likely to get anything useful out of Boris until he had managed to control his temper again. He turned his attention to Ivan instead as he settled on the sofa opposite.

“What was that about?” he asked, sticking with Russian as some things didn’t need to be shared. Yuri noticed Max follow Takao out from the corner of his eye and couldn’t come up with a reason for why Rei elected to stay behind.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Ivan insisted, “he started it, said something about me not being part of the team.”

Yuri felt his eyebrows shoot up, glancing back over his shoulder as Sergei cautiously got to his feet, this time keeping a white-knuckle grip on Boris’ arm. “Was that all?” Boris may have been a temperamental maniac, but he wouldn’t have got so worked up over something so trivial. “What did you say to him?”

The briefest flash of guilt flickered across Ivan’s eyes, instantly making Yuri suspicious. “I…” He trailed off with a shrug, weighing his hands in front of him. “I may have said something worse.”

Yuri scowled, but was distracted from answering when the door opened again behind him. He felt Kai step up beside the sofa before he actually saw him, arms crossed as he surveyed the damage.

“I leave for two minutes and there’s chaos,” Kai said, the tiniest of smirks playing at his lips. His eyes flicked from Ivan to Boris and back again. “I could hear the screaming from outside.”

Yuri gave an exasperated sigh, turned fully towards Kai and formed the most serious expression he could muster. “Is it too late to change my mind about the house?”

Ivan was still sneering at Boris a half hour later as they ate, the older boy shooting back dirty looks of his own in response and earning himself an elbow in the ribs from Sergei. Yuri was immensely glad that Sergei had the brilliant idea of sitting them at opposite ends of the table, as far away from each other as possible, because he certainly wasn’t going to take responsibility if they ended up in another fight.

His attention was distracted by Takao reaching half way over the table to get more food onto his plate, instead of just asking someone to pass it to him.

“Does he always do that?” Yuri asked, lowering his voice so that only Kai would pick up on it.

Kai grit his teeth, biting out something in Japanese that startled Takao for all of two seconds before he started eating again. “Unfortunately.” He was cut off from saying anything else when his mobile beeped, the vibrations nearly sending it dancing off the table. Kai growled in frustration at the name on the screen and spared Yuri a quick apology before he left the hall.

Yuri glanced down at his own plate and decided he wasn’t hungry.

He looked over the table and came to the irritating conclusion that everyone else was talking and he was being ignored. Ivan had managed to wrangle himself into an energetic conversation with Kyouju and Takao, apparently surprising them both with his knowledge of beyblade design; so much so that Kyouju—who Yuri hadn’t really spoken to much and had honestly pinned as the Bladebreakers’ mascot and nothing more—was asking him for advice and upgrade suggestions.

Sergei was talking to Max about their future living arrangement—Sergei seemed to have started the conversation, though there was no doubt that Max had taken it over. At least he was trying to speak slowly for Sergei’s sake. Max was reeling off a list of things they would need, apparently things he’d had to come to grips with when he’d moved from America to Japan, and then the conversation spiralled off into something else entirely and it looked as though Sergei was just humouring him.

What stunned him the most, however, was what was occurring at the far end of the table. A conversation, an actual conversation—albeit stunted and not necessarily easy considering that, of the four of them, Boris was struggling the most with learning English—between Yuri’s closest friend and the boy he had been ordered to kill if necessary. Yuri had been dubious at first about sitting them opposite each other, but now he couldn’t help but smile, the easy-going look on Rei’s face giving him hope that he may have forgiven Boris for his actions. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, only a dull murmur through the commotion happening right beside his ear, but the longer he watched, the more he could see the hardened mask slipping from Boris’ face.

And then the craziest thing happened, sending the entire table into a shocked silence; both Boris and Rei _laughed_. Not just a chuckle or a casual snicker at an off-hand joke, no, actual bottom-of-the-stomach guffaws that crinkled Boris’ eyes and left Rei in tears.

Yuri couldn’t have been happier.


End file.
